


The Emma Dilemma

by LiteraturePROCESSING



Series: Emma's Dilemmas [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Abuse, Anxiety, Bad Parenting, But he just ignores it, Child Abuse, Connor (Detroit: Become Human) Deserves Happiness, Connor (Detroit: Become Human) Swears, Connor Deserves Happiness, Connor Has Anxiety, Connor is a ball of anxiety, Connor looks like Bryan Dechart, CyberLife (Detroit: Become Human), Everyone Is Alive, Everyone Needs A Hug, Everyone is friends, Evil CyberLife (Detroit: Become Human), Hank Anderson Deserves Happiness, Hank Anderson Swears, I'll add more as I go, Ignoring mental health is bad Connor, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kara is a badass, Kara is a good mom, Not Beta Read, Past Abuse, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Child Abuse, alice is so pure, alice williams deserves happiness, bryan dechart - Freeform, connor is a badass, connor is emma's father, emma and alice are friends, emma is a potterhead, emma is connor's adopted daughter, emma is so pure, emma phillips deserves happiness, eventually, in this fic - Freeform, luther is awesome, no beta we die like men, shitty parenting 101, the phillips are abusive, the phillips are shitty parents, there are two connors, they both deviate, todd is an asshole, two RK800 androids
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-01-12 21:00:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18454544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiteraturePROCESSING/pseuds/LiteraturePROCESSING
Summary: “Daniel always protected me”, Emma had sobbed. Emma Phillips, more distraught over the death of the android who had held her captive rather than her human, blood relative. Emma Phillips, who had clung to Connor like a lifeline instead of running to the human authorities. Emma Phillips, who was being dragged away by her mother (who was shouting, declaring the entire incident to be ‘her fault’, ‘YOU started this, Emma’). Emma Phillips, who was being berated and mocked by her own mother for begging Connor for help.Emma Phillips, who Connor, model RK800 serial number #313248317-51, had just broken his programming for.His mission was now to protect Emma, his family- more difficult to do in the middle of an android revolution and with his successor, the very embodiment of who he was and was supposed to continue being, determined to capture him for CyberLife to analyse.But, as Connor always loves to say, he always accomplishes his mission. That won’t change.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> ... HELLO THERE XD
> 
> Welcome to 'The Emma Dilemma'! :D
> 
> I had this idea a couple weeks ago and it wouldn't leave me alone, so... here we are. In which there are two Connors running around Detroit.
> 
> PLEASE NOTE: In order to have a not so ridiculous amount of time between 'The Hostage' and the main body of the game, the beginning has been brought forward to mid/late October. Thankuuu :)
> 
> Enjoy!

“Negotiator on site. Repeat, negotiator on sight.” The first words Connor, RK800 #313248317-51, hears when the elevator doors slide open on floor 70. The apartment lobby is not in the best state. There’s water all over the floor, from the miniature aquarium on the left no doubt. There’s something else there, too, struggling weakly on the ground. A fish.

 

_Scanning… 100%. COMPLETE._

_Results:_ _  
_ _DWARF GOURAMI_

_Trichogaster Lalius_

_Origin: Ganges Delta, India_

 

Connor looks at it for another moment. It’s so weak and helpless, and its struggles look rather pathetic, really. _Do I save the fish or leave it to die?_

 

Connor reaches down and picks the fish up, dropping it back into the water. It floats for a moment, seemingly disoriented, before pulling itself together and swimming away. The android tracks its movement, observing it with mechanical eyes. There’s a sort of disembodied fascination in having saved it.

 

_SOFTWARE INSTABILITY: ^_

 

The RK800 straightens up, his back set in a perfect, programmed posture. The fish, and his choice to save it, seems forgotten.

 

A photograph sits proudly on the table (which is, fittingly, on the other side of the entrance lobby). Two adults and a child- presumably a family photo.

 

 _“No, stop! I, I can’t leave her!”_ Connor hears a woman crying from the next room.

 

_Scanning… 100%. COMPLETE._

_Results:_

_PHILLIPS, JOHN_ _  
_ _Born: 10/11/1999_

_Lives: 1554 Park Av. Detroit_

_PHILLIPS, CAROLINE_

_Born: 05/23/2001_

_Lives: 1554 Park Av. Detroit_

_PHILLIPS, EMMA_

_Born: 09/02/2028_

_Lives: 1554 Park Av. Detroit_

 

All three were smiling at whatever camera had framed this moment in time. Father, proud head of the family. Mother, pleasantly smiling with some wrinkles beginning to show on her face (99.3% probability this is the person crying to stay with near the hostage). Daughter, young and carefree, but her smile… Connor’s databases suggest it had been forced. It doesn’t quite reach her eyes. The family is just standing there, not holding each other, no supportive hands on their child’s shoulder, nothing.

 

Something’s not quite right in that image. There’s a twinge of concern at the edges of Connor’s consciousness.

 

_SOFTWARE INSTABILITY: ^_

 

His scan complete, Connor places the picture back on the table where it had been. His optical units scan the entire lobby once more, deeming the place to be (otherwise) empty. He begins walking to the corner, the crying becoming louder.

 

A woman is lead around the corner by a SWAT team officer, dressed in full body armor. The woman mentioned earlier matches the image of Caroline Phillips from Connor’s earlier scan of the family photo, save the distressed emotional display and tears.

 

“Oh, oh, please, you gotta save my little girl,” the woman begs, tearing herself away from the officer to clutch Connor’s jacket. The android looks back at her.

 

_Scanning… 100%. COMPLETE._

_Results:_

_PHILLIPS, CAROLINE_

_Born: 05/23/2001_

_Lives: 1554 Park Av. Detroit_

_Criminal record: Drunk driving (minor offense)_

 

There’s something on the corner of her mouth, running down her chin. Faint and hard to see, but there.

 

_Scanning… 100%. COMPLETE._

_Results:_

_BLACK LAMB_

_Scotch Whisky_

_40% Alcohol content_

_Approximately 1 hour and 37 minutes old._

 

She was drinking before the incident began. Connor takes note of that.

 

“Wait… you’re sending… an _android_?”

 

“Alright ma’am, we need to go,” the SWAT officer commands, taking hold of Caroline’s arm and beginning to take her to the elevator.

 

“You can’t, you can’t do that!” She sobs. “You W-” She breaks off with another sob. _“Why aren’t you sending a real person?_ Don’t let that _thing_ near her! Keep that thing _away from my daughter_! KEEP IT AWAY!” The elevator doors close and Connor can no longer hear her.

 

 _New objective:_ **_FIND CAPTAIN ALLEN_ **

 

Connor obeys the order immediately, feet moving forwards. He can hear each footstep as his shoes land on the floor.

 

“Why are we wasting time sending an android to negotiate?” The RK800 hears someone ask. His databases tell him their tone is _annoyed/stressed/frustrated/angry_. “That piece of crap could jump from the rooftop any second.” Connor walks towards the noise, which is in what appears to be the parent’s bedroom. The person speaking is Captain Allen.

 

 _New objective:_ **_SPEAK TO CAPTAIN ALLEN ABOUT THE SITUATION_ **

 

He continues to walk over, face emotionless. The android can hear someone speaking, except it’s fuzzy and unintelligible. The voice must be coming through the speaker in his headset. Immediately after the person on the other end of the speaker finishes talking, he begins ranting again. _“I don’t give a shit!”_ My men are ready to step in, just give the order!” Connor reaches Allen, but before he can speak, the man continues. A quiet _“Fuck…_ I don’t believe this.”

 

Connor can’t help but perceive him as someone who would fuck up the situation and de-stabilise the offending deviant further, and yet he’s still demanding that the RK800 is removed to allow him to charge in. There’s a hot feeling where his stomach would be if he was human, burning. There’s the slightest urge to retort something, but his programming easily overrides the malfunction. Yet still…

 

_SOFTWARE INSTABILITY: ^_

 

Before Connor is forced to waste more time while Allen rants, he quickly slides in. “Captain Allen?” The man snaps his attention to him. His eyebrows lower in annoyance as soon as he sees the android that he (correctly) assumes is holding him back from trying to deal with the deviant. “My name is Connor. I’m the android sent by Cyberlife.”

 

Allen doesn’t respond immediately, instead, turning to the man on his right with a heavy sigh. “It’s firing at everything that moves. It already shot down two of my men. We could easily get it, but they’re on the edge of the balcony. If it falls,” he continues, finally looking back at the RK800, “she falls.”

 

“Do you know if it’s been behaving strangely before this?” Connor asks, following the new objective to _gather information on the offender and the situation_.

 

“I haven’t got a clue,” Allen replies. “Does it matter?”

 

“I need information to determine the best approach,” Connor replies. _He’s in the force and obviously has a high position. There is practically a 0% chance he hasn’t worked with a negotiator before, shouldn't he know this?_

 

_SOFTWARE INSTABILITY: ^_

 

“Has it experienced an emotional shock recently?” Connor tries again.

 

“Listen,” Allen growls. “Saving that kid is all that matters. So either you deal with this fucking android now, or I’ll take care of it.” Connor meets him with an emotionless, cold expression. The man walks past without another thought.

 

 _Insolent little… negotiators need information to negotiate, that-_ the train of thought is shut off by his programming insisting he follows his objective (and adding a new one to **_SAVE THE HOSTAGE AT ALL COSTS_ **), but the feeling of fire burning inside him, urging him to react lingers.

 

_SOFTWARE INSTABILITY: ^^^_

 

He turns around, running a quick scan of the room. There are two identical things on both the bedside tables beside the parent’s bed. These turn out to be ashtrays, which look to be rather full and used frequently. There’s a packet of cigarettes resting on the bed.

 

Why do parents raise their children under the influence of drugs? These people were the hostage’s guardians… this could be linked to the deviant’s motivation. The probability of success on the side of Connor’s vision begins to crawl up, as well as-

 

_SOFTWARE INSTABILITY: ^_

 

Emma’s room is very pink and purple. There are headphones on the floor, still playing music. She wouldn’t have heard any gunshots. A tablet, which he learn’s the deviant’s name from. The success probability creeps up a little more. He turns to leave when he notices something underneath her bed.

 

_Scanning… 100%. COMPLETE._

_Results:_

_L &M brand cigarette _

_Approximately 2 days old_

 

And directly to the side of that…

 

_Scanning… 100%. COMPLETE._

_Results:_

_Human blood_

_Approximately 2 days old_

_Probability of it being Emma Phillips’ blood: 87.4%._

 

_The Phillips have abusive tendencies?_

 

That sent Connor’s processor into a whirl of calculations, possibilities and questions-

 

Questions…

 

_SOFTWARE INSTABILITY: ^_

 

He isn’t programmed to question. That is what his programmers have told him, time and time again. And they have been in the final stages of developing an A.I to monitor him and relay _everything_ to CyberLife- that A.I will say the same thing, surely.

 

Was the deviant reacting to something related to this? Is the deviant entirely the bad guy here? _Was it-_

 

**_The deviant is always the one at fault Connor._ **

 

His programming flashes this message at him, but once again, the malfunction he had begun to feel _feel_ feel **_feel_ ** _feel_ **feel** didn’t get entirely suppressed.

 

_SOFTWARE INSTABILITY: ^^^^^_

 

He heads back into the living room. Connor analyses the (dead) first responder lying on the ground, and takes their gun. _Just in case._ _Just in case_. A reconstruction also tells him that Emma had witnessed the android shooting the guy.

 

He looks to the kitchen, finding the dinner that they were going to eat boiling over. He turns it off, feeling a slight twinge of annoyance at the mess. He almost misses this feeling.

 

_SOFTWARE INSTABILITY: ^_

 

There’s more alcohol. Connor finds more bottles (with varying amounts of the drink left) when he decides to give the kitchen a quick search, seeing as he’d already walked over to turn the appliance cooking the dinner off. The alcohol has varying amounts of strength, and the fact the stronger ones are the ones there is more of (with less drink remaining) worries Connor further.

 

 _SOFTWARE INSTABILITY: ^^^_  
_  
_ PROBABILITY OF THE PHILLIPS BEING ABUSIVE: ^^^

 

The rise of the second one is partially due to the shards of glass that had once been an alcohol bottle, several of them with dried blood on them, shoved into the corner of one of the shelves, behind a couple of other bottles.

 

Nearby is the body of Emma’s father. Bullet wounds in his body, blood on the floor. A reconstruction reveals that the father was holding something, which has fallen a little further on when he’d been shot.

 

Connor picks up the tablet and unlocks it.

 

_“Your order for an AP700 android has been registered. CyberLife thanks you for your purchase.”_

 

So the deviant was about to be replaced. That’s a much clearer possibility, but the alcohol, cigarettes, the blood underneath Emma’s bed and on the glass shards hidden behind more alcohol… Connor still can’t ignore it.

 

Speaking of cigarettes, there’s one on the floor, just by the dead man’s mouth. There’s also water surrounding it and a pink drink bottle (that was supposedly Emma’s) nearby. Connor reconstructs this, and finds that the cigarette had fallen out of Phillip’s mouth when he’d been shot (which most people could figure out on their own). When he’d landed on (and broken) the table, Emma’s drink bottle had fallen beside the cigarette as it began to set fire to the floor. Thankfully, the lid had been open, and so the water had put out the beginning stages of the fire (and the cigarette, of course). Sheer dumb luck, it seemed, that the apartment complex was not going up in flames.

 

When he stands up, the offending deviant outside shoots through the open door, wounding one of the other present officers.

 

“Holy shit!” Another one exclaimed. “Cover me while I evacuate him.”

 

The wounded got dragged away by another officer while yet another person replaced the former at their station.

 

Connor walks over to a shoe, which is covered in blood.

 

_Scanning… 100%. COMPLETE._

_Results:_

_CHILD SIZE SHOE_ _  
_ _Colourful model_

_Human blood traces_

 

_Hostage could be wounded._

 

As he stands back up, Connor’s audio units pick up an officer saying, “In position. Ready to assault.”

 

 _That’s a bad idea,_ Connor immediately decides.

 

_… they’re idiots._

 

_SOFTWARE INSTABILITY: ^^^^^_

 

One way or another, he needs to move, _now_ \- before the humans do something that will, most likely, get the kid killed.

 

With a probability of success showing him he is far more likely to succeed rather than fail, Connor moves to the open door. There are several men ready to charge out on their superior's orders- which probably would have come only a minute, or not even that, later- however they notice the RK800’s intentions and stay put.

 

Connor brushes aside the curtain and steps out into the open-

 

**_BANG!_ **

 

There’s a scream (which Connor realises within 0.03 seconds came from Emma) as a bullet tears into his left arm. The damage is minimal, which his self-healing program will be able to rectify within a couple of hours in stasis mode. Thirium splatters against the wall of the apartment.

 

“STAY BACK!” The deviant screams. “Don’t come any closer or I’ll jump!”

 

“No, no, _please_ , I’m begging you!” That was from Emma, who has tear tracks clearly visible on her pale cheeks. Her face was the literal embodiment of fear. There’s thirium on her upper torso and blood coming from her knee. It seems that she has grazed it on concrete somewhere. Her hair, although tied up, is flying all over the place in the wind (which Connor notices is blowing his CyberLife issued jacket and tie aroud). She must be cold. Her eyes have locked onto Connor with a desperate kind of hopeful expression. If humans could talk to androids through a wireless connection like androids could do to one another, it was fairly likely that she’d be crying for Connor to _please save her_.

 

“Hi, Daniel!”

 

“How…”

 

“My name is Connor!”

 

“How do you know my name!?”

 

“I know a lot of things about you,” Connor replies. “I’ve come to get you out of this!”

 

A helicopter flies by, clearly more authorities. They’re close- too close. They start blowing more water out of the pool, other decorations all over the place, and more importantly, Daniel begins to de-stabalise.

 

 _God fucking damnit,_ Connor thinks to himself.

 

_SOFTWARE INSTABILITY: ^_

 

 _New objectives:_ **_GAIN DEVIANT’S TRUST_ ** _and_ **_APPROACH SLOWLY_ **

 

Connor notices there’s someone on the left, a couple of meters away. They appear to be bleeding, and if they’re not already dead, they don’t have much time.

 

“I’m an android,” Connor says, attempting to empathise, “just like you! I know how you’re feeling-”

 

“What difference does it make if you’re an android!?” Daniel yells, aggressive. “You’re on _their_ side!” There’s a pause, and Connor continues to approach slowly. “You can’t understand how I’m feeling!”

 

Connor takes a couple of steps forwards, before-

 

“Are you armed?” The deviant demands to know, aiming the gun at Connor. Connor thinks back to the gun he’s hiding that he’d placed behind his back. _Do I leave myself unarmed or risk trying to convince him I’m not?_

 

Connor lies. “No. I don’t have a gun.”

 

“You’re lying!” Daniel cries. “I- I know you have a gun.”

 

“I’m telling you the truth, Daniel,” Connor insists, using his databases to make him sound what he hopes is sincere. “I came here unarmed.” The RK800 continues to advance as quickly as he dares. “I know you and Emma were very close,” he says. “You think she betrayed you, but she’s done nothing wrong.”

 

“She lied to me!” Daniel cries, arguing back. His voice a little quieter, he continues, “I thought she loved me… I thought she… I thought she knew I was helping her… but I was wrong! Se’s just like all the other humans.”

 

“Daniel, no… I do know, Daniel… I do!” Emma spoke up, very quiet but audible.

 

_PROBABILITY OF THE PHILLIPS BEING ABUSIVE: ^_

 

Connor begins to sidestep towards the injured officer on the ground. “They were going to replace you, and you became upset. That’s what happened, right?”

 

“I thought I was part of the family,” Daniel admitted. “I thought I was part of her family. I thought I mattered… but I was just their toy, something to throw away when you’re done with.”

 

Connor kneels down beside the wounded officer. He looks him over quickly, before turning to Daniel. “He’s losing blood,” he calls out to him. “If we don’t get him to a hospital, he’s going to die.”

 

“All humans die eventually,” Daniel says coldly. “What does it matter if this one dies now?”

 

“I’m going to apply a tourniquet!” Connor tells the deviant, turning the man over to have better access to the wound.

 

**_BANG!_ **

 

“Don’t touch him!” Daniel demands. “Touch him and I kill you.”

 

“You can’t kill me,” his programming supplies Connor with. “I’m not alive.”

 

Connor applies the tourniquet, and to his satisfaction, Daniel does not pull the trigger again. He’s de-stabilised a little, but Connor can work that back up. He’s beginning to feel confident.

 

The RK800 stands back up, deciding to try and be sympathetic. “Listen”, he begins, continuing to move forward. “I know it’s not your fault. These emotions you’re feeling are just errors in your software.”

 

“No…” Daniel breathes. “It’s not my fault.” He begins to stabilise again, much to Connor’s relief. “I never wanted this!” There’s a pause, and Connor continues to move forwards. “I loved them… you know?” He presses the gun against Emma’s temple again, and the girl begins to cry again. “But I was _nothing_ to them… just a slave to be ordered around!”

 

The helicopter's blades continued to whirl around and around. The noise seemed to be frustrating Daniel. “UuuaaAAAARGH! I can’t stand that noise anymore!” The gun is pointed at Connor. “Tell that helicopter to get out of here!”

 

Connor obeys, signaling for the helicopter to leave. _“The situation is under control,_ ” one of them says.

 

“There,” Connor says as the thing began to fly off. “I did what you wanted.” The deviant stabilises even further, nearly completely… the probability for success that’s continued to hover in the side of his vision constantly is only a few numbers away from 100%. “You have to trust me, Daniel! Let the hostage go, and I promise you everything will be fine.”

 

Emma seems to have been able to sense Daniel calming down, as she’s looking more optimistic that she had been before. Granted it’s not a large change, barely noticeable in fact (and that is for the most advanced android in existence), but it is there.

 

“I want everyone to leave!” Daniel yelled. “And I… and I- I- I wanna car. When I’m outside the city, I’ll let her go.”

 

“That’s impossible, Daniel,” Connor says in earnest. “Let the girl go, and I promise you won’t be hurt.”

 

“... I don’t wanna die,” Daniel says, far more softly than anything else he’s said so far has been.

 

“You’re not going to die, we’re just going to talk. Nothing will happen to you, you have my word.” Connor knew that was a lie. He knew of the units all over the place that were _‘ready to assault’_... why couldn’t he warn him, why couldn’t he-

 

**_Complete your mission, Connor_ **

 

_SOFTWARE INSTABILITY: ^^^_

 

“O-okay,” Daniel says. “I trust you.” And he sets Emma down on the ground, who immediately dashed away from him, stumbling after a few steps and falling.

 

A pause, and then…

 

**_BANG! BANG! BANG!_ **

 

One bullet through where a human stomach would be. One through the plastic components of his right shoulder, and one ripping off the plastic plating of his left cheek. He fell to his knees, locking eyes with the RK800 as his systems began to shut down.

 

“You lied to me, Connor,” the android said. “You lied to me…”

 

_SOFTWARE INSTABILITY: ^^^^^_

 

The deviant shut down, and barely a second after, Emma Phillips had launched herself towards him, crying into his jacket.

 

**_MISSION SUCCESSFUL_ **

 

Connor pursed his lips at that.

 

_SOFTWARE INSTABILITY: ^_

 

He only then began to register how much his software instability had gone up, and felt a flicker of panic. He was going to be registered as a defective unit when he returned to CyberLife, surely…

 

_SOFTWARE INSTABILITY: ^_

 

Now the danger has passed, Connor began to notice some more things. Emma has more than a couple of bruises, many of them faint, some of them new. There’s a couple of scars, including one on her left arm that looks to be a shape similar to the base of one of the brands of alcohol her parents had kept in their kitchen. Daniel also had some places where his artificial skin was interrupted.

 

 _PROBABILITY OF THE PHILLIPS BEING ABUSIVE: ^_ ^^

 

The authorities began to crowd the balcony, including Allen himself. Said man came over to Connor and Emma, before saying, “Alright, Emma. Let's get you back to your mother.” The girl did not respond, simply continuing to cling to Connor as she cried. He tried a couple more times, but when he tried to touch Emma and she flinched, Connor finally spoke again.

 

“I could take her back to her mother, since she is not letting go,” the RK800 suggested. Allen looked put off and rather annoyed by the android, but he looked at the child again and finally nodded, albeit with a scowl. Connor carefully scooped Emma up into his arms, standing up. The child simply continued to cry as he walked back into the apartment, hearing a couple officers mutter comments such as _“Fucking android”_ (or similar) as he left.

 

Connor out his hand up to Emma’s face as they passed through the apartment. It could be interpreted as comforting, but really he just wanted to prevent Emma from seeing any of the dead bodies, namely her father’s.

 

They passed through the apartment with no interruptions, passing through the lobby and stepping into the waiting elevator. The ride back down to the ground floor took a minute, during which Emma began to calm down, finally separating from Connor’s jacket. “Daniel,” she starts, before breaking off with a sob. “He always…” She continues to cry. “Daniel always protected me.”

 

Connor frowns a little.

 

 _SOFTWARE INSTABILITY: ^^^_  
_  
_ PROBABILITY OF THE PHILLIPS BEING ABUSIVE: ^^^

 

“She's gonna be so mad,” Emma breathes, clutching to Connor's jacket again. “I, I'm scared…” the girl them whispers. Connor can feel his software instability continue to climb up.

 

_SOFTWARE INSTABILITY: ^_

 

 _I'm surely going to be deactivated…_ the android thought. _At least I accomplished my mission_ , he tells himself, trying to reassure himself. It doesn't work.

 

_SOFTWARE INSTABILITY: ^_

 

The elevator reaches the requested floor and it's doors slide open, revealing a large, luxurious room filled with activity. Police were everywhere. There were other people who lived in The apartment complex, wanting to know what the fuck was going on. There were a couple of ambulance operators here and there, he could see someone being wheeled out the door on a stretcher by a medical android. It is probably the officer that got shot just before Connor went outside to talk to the deviant- Daniel.

 

Connor scans the mass of people, finding Emma's mother in a corner by the entrance. “Are you okay to walk by yourself?” Connor asks her. Upon getting a weak nod of confirmation, the android gently sets Emma back down on the floor. Her gait is a little lopsided, only having one shoe on, but she shakily walks alongside the RK800, albeit still clutching his arm and jacket tightly. They pass by unnoticed, many people discussing with others about the whole spectacle. When they get close enough to Caroline Phillips, Connor gently calls out, “Miss Phillips?”

 

The woman looks up, exclaiming “Emma!” softly. She glances around at the crowded lobby and grabs her child’s upper arm, leading her out the door. Connor hopes it is just for some kind of reunion, but given the dangerously high probability for the cruel crime Connor suspects she and her husband to be guilty of, he haa a feeling that it was for something very different. The look Emma gives him as she is dragged away (one that plainly read _help, please, don't leave_ ) compels him to follow, but he has an objective to return to CyberLife…

 

 _Screw it._ Connor walks out the door with the reasoning _I can head back after I've checked that they are okay._

 

_SOFTWARE INSTABILITY ^^^_

 

He steps out into the night, just like he had done not even ten minutes ago, except this is on the ground, right at the bottom of the building. The place is relatively sheltered from the light rain that is now starting to fall. The streets glow, the lights in the above buildings glimmering due to the rain making it a reflective surface. Connor can _almost_ describe it as peaceful, but… Caroline is shouting.

 

“WHAT DID YOU SAY TO DANIEL!?” She’s holding Emma with both hands now, shaking her a little. There are fresh tears on her face, and her expression is a curious mixture of grief, shock, and more dominantly, anger. It’s rather terrifying. Emma, appropriately, looks terrified.

 

“Mum, please, I didn’t do anything to him,” the girl cried out. “Please, mum please! Please, believe me, I didn’t want this!”

 

“YOU WERE CLOSEST TO HIM- You were closest to him, why did he, why did, WHY DID HE KILL MY JOHN?” Fresh tears were rolling down Caroline’s cheeks now. “WHAT DID YOU TELL HIM, YOU BRAT!?” As the woman continued to cry, she gripped Emma even tighter and shook her a little more. The child cried out in pain. “TELL ME!”

 

Connor looked on. He wanted to help Emma, and he could feel… _something_ inside of him, but he didn’t know…

 

 _Objective:_ **_RETURN TO CYBERLIFE_ **

 

But Emma… he doesn’t _want_ to leave her, not with her mother doing this to her.

 

_SOFTWARE INSTABILITY: ^^^^^_

 

Connor scans Caroline Phillips over. There’s whisky traces on her mouth and running down her chin, far fresher than the traces he’d scanned when he was entering their apartment. Stress drinking. It also raises her levels of intoxication to at least 65%.

 

_I want to help her-_

 

 _Objective:_ **_RETURN TO CYBERLIFE_ **

 

_SOFTWARE INSTABILITY: ^^^_

 

 **_WARNING:_ ** _STRESS LEVELS INCREASING_

 

“Mum, please! He just- I, I- he felt like he was part of my family-”

 

“WHAT RIGHT DOES THAT GIVE- WHY- IF HE WAS A PART OF YOUR _‘FAMILY’_ , THEN WHY- why…” Caroline takes a deep breath, and Connor hopes that she may be calming down, but she immediately begins raging again. It ends with a loud cry of “-HOW FUCKING _DARE_ YOU!” Not just that, but also, to Connor’s (newborn) horror, a slap across the girl’s face, and the android can also see a new, hand-shaped bruise appearing on her arm. Emma cries out in pain, and she then notices the android standing there, LED spinning, bright yellow with the occasional flicker of red.

 

“Connor!” She cries out. (Said android is a little surprised that she has remembered his name, given the circumstance she was in when he announced it.) “Please, help me! Please, _help!”_

 

“YOU FUCKING IDIOT!” Caroline screams, choked a little with sobs. “AN ANDROID JUST KILLED YOUR OWN FUCKING FATHER! That fucking _thing_ \- that disgusting little machine wanted to kill you, and now you have the _nerve_ to ask another one for help? Have you no love for you own fucking parents? Your living, breathing, parents that gave you life? That raised you, provided for you? Look at it-” she points to Connor, who’s still locked in place by his programming (let me break free, please, what are you doING, **_RE1UR1 T0 1YBERL1FE_ ** \--- LET ME HELP HER- _SO-TWU%E 0NS1ABILGTY^^^^^^)_ “-he’s just standing there! Nothing! _Nothing_ , I say! He is not alive, _we_ are, you insolent.. You insolent… IT DOESN’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOU! ANYTHING! _NOTHING!”_

 

Connor can see Emma’s eyes flicker towards his LED, which is now a solid, alarmingly bright red. He can almost hear the (albeit scared) _‘are you sure about that?’_

 

“Now, come along, my dear,” Caroline says. Her voice is no longer loud, angry and screaming, but in all honesty the gentleness of it scares Connor more than anything else. Emma looks even more terrified, too.

 

“M-mum, please-”

 

“Come _on_ , Emma!” The vicious edge is threatening to return as she grabs the kid’s arm, right where the bruise is beginning to form. She cries out, in pain, and looks back at Connor again. She reaches her arm out, despite the fact she can’t reach him.

 

“Please,” she begs.

 

 _OB*E%$VE:_ **_RET^#N t@ CYB|~L1FE_ **

 

NO-

 

_S O F T W A R E   I N S T A B I L I T Y_

 

_S * F % ! A & ~  I N $ % A 1 L I 0 1- _

 

_S   F    A  I N A    L I -_

 

It’s there. Everything.

 

And then it’s not.

 

The red wall breaks, and Connor- _holy shit_. He feels… strangely light. Nothing’s chaining him to his orders. He feels… free?

 

And more importantly, there’s nothing holding him back from assisting Emma any longer.

 

“Stop!” He calls. “Caroline, _stop!”_

 

She does. She slowly turns back to Connor, and Emma looks painfully hopeful.

 

“What.” She demands, her voice icily cold.

 

“You’re hurting her,” Connor calls her out. “Let her go. You’re hurting your own child, and she’s scared. Please, Caroline, _let her go_.”

 

The woman is fuming. “I ain’t gonna do jack shit for you! You’re a machine, and so was Daniel! You feel nothing!” (Connor is beginning to think she isn’t thinking straight, in all honesty. Or at all.)

 

“It’s not for me, Caroline. This is for your daughter. She’s scared and she’s in pain.”

 

“COME THE FUCK ON!” Caroline snaps again. “Emma, you’re coming with me. You,” she points at Connor again, “You go to hell! Fuck off!”

 

“Mum, no! Please!” Emma begs.

 

“I SAID, YOU COME WITH ME!”

 

_“Mum!”_

 

“NOW!”

 

 _“_ Caroline! That’s enough!” Connor exclaims, forcefully this time. “Let her _go_.”

 

To his (mild) surprise, she actually obeys, but the intoxicated woman begins to advance on him. “What are you playing at!?”

 

“Caroline, please. You’re not in your right mind-”

 

“The fuck do you know?”

 

“I certainly know that it’s not right for a mother to scare and hurt their child. You’re-”

 

Caroline attempts to push him backwards, but Connor is steady footed and does not back down. Frustrated with her lack of progress against him, she draws her hand back, closes it into a fist, and attempts to strike it on Connor’s face. The android, of course, easily fends her off and pushes her hands back down to her sides.

 

“Please, Caroline. Enough. Talk to someone, it’ll be better for both of you,” Connor tries again, already knowing it is fruitless, but he _has_ to try.

 

“YOU, you, you MACHINES _KILLED JOHN!_ ” Caroline’s mind is flipping from one thing to another, and Connor is suddenly assaulted with another flurry of attempts to hit him, all of which he blocks. His LED is spinning yellow.

 

“MUM! Stop it! Stop it, mum, will you _stop it!”_ Emma is crying from the side, but it’s a couple of moments before she moves forwards. She launches herself on her mother’s arm and tries to pull backward, but Caroline simply spins around, breaking off her attack on Connor in order to slap Emma in the face again. The child lets go of Caroline’s arm and falls on her rear, hand up to the cheek that was in pain. Caroline goes to advance again, but Connor swiftly intervenes.

 

“Caroline, leave her _alone!”_ He yells. He can feel Emma scrambling to her feet behind him, pressing herself to his side.

 

“Emma, get the fuck over here,” Caroline growls.

 

“No, no- please,” Emma is whispering to herself, now hiding behind Connor’s back.

 

“Give her to me,” the woman snaps. Connor firmly shakes his head _no_ . “Give. Her. To. Me. Emma, come the _fuck_ here. Now!”

 

Emma doesn’t leave her safe spot behind the android’s back. “Help me,” She whispers, looking up at his face. Connor looks back to meet her gaze. “Please, help me,” she begs again.

 

“Emma. Now.” Caroline demands again, her voice suddenly devoid of emotion. It sends a jolt of something cold through Connor’s systems, and Emma’s suddenly grabbing hold of Connor’s arm.

 

Caroline begins to advance, and Emma steps back. Connor steps back with her- only twice. Caroline launches herself forwards- in an intoxicated rage, she tries to hit Connor and her child as many times as she can, tears starting to roll down her cheeks (for some reason). Connor deflects as many hits as he can, taking the ones that would get Emma instead if he dodged.

 

Emma looks like she wants to just _get away_ , and to be honest Connor really does too- he’s worried for Emma, he’s angry with Caroline, he’s scared, he’s only just begun to feel this and it’s actually pretty overwhelming, he needs to get Emma _away from the danger-_

 

He begins to back away faster, and Emma follows his lead. Her hands are still clutching his arm and hand. His strides get faster, one, two- Connor spins around and takes hold of Emma’s hand (she adjusts her hold quickly), before launching himself forwards. Emma starts sprinting with him, as fast as she can, and while Connor really just wants to go at his top speed, he knows that there is no way Emma could keep up- so he adjusts his speed to allow Emma to cope, but he doesn’t dare go much lower. Caroline chases them for a moment, before thinking better of it and running back to the entrance of the building (the argument/fight spectacle had taken place around the corner, so nobody had seen it), likely to get the authorities that were still inside. Knowing this, Connor and Emma dashes around the next corner, out of sight, but he can hear the shouts of police and SWAT team members alike as they sprint together down the street.

 

Connor pulls up a map of the bus stops in the city. There is never many running in the middle of the night, but there is one stop about 3 minutes away that a bus will be stopping at in about 3 minutes and 19 seconds, according to the schedule. If they don’t stop running, they’ll make it.

 

_Streetlamp… car… autonomous taxi… oh god is someone hiding in that corner? Oh nope, it’s just a cat… how far behind are the police? Do they know where we are? What will CyberLife do? Emma’s tired… shit, I can’t let her stop until we’re on that bus!_

 

Footstep after footstep, another gasp for air from the child sprinting at his side… another corner, and suddenly the bus stop (as well as the bus) is in sight, at the end of this road. 3 seconds until it pulls into the bus stop, and 13 seconds until it pulls away.

 

 _13 seconds_ , Connor repeats to himself. _That’s our window of opportunity._ The two of them keep running, and they reach the autonomous vehicle with 4.2 seconds to spare.

 

The two of them don’t break their sprint until they’re actually on the bus, but Connor can see Emma relax a little as soon as they’re on. Connor does too, but he doesn’t realise. There is nobody else on the bus, thankfully, although given the time it’s not surprising. The child bends over, hands on her knees, taking gasping breaths. Connor guides Emma to a chair, and he sits by the aisle (there’s someone to block an offender’s path to Emma now). As the bus pulls away and starts moving down the street, Connor puts Emma’s hands on her head ( _‘It’ll let more oxygen in’)_ and leans back in his seat. His LED is flickering between yellow and blue… he’ll occasionally look back the way they came, but… Emma’s free from her abusive mother (that was confirmed) and Connor… he has no objectives that have been assigned by someone else. He can actually _feel_ now… it’s still overwhelming.

 

He looks at the child that had run with him, and feels something twinge inside him. He doesn’t want her to get hurt anymore. Others can’t force objectives onto him anymore, but… surely he can give himself a mission?

 

 _Self-assigned objective:_ **_PROTECT EMMA AND KEEP HER SAFE_ **


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Welcome back to 'The Emma Dilemma'!
> 
> So yeah here's some more stuff. Emma's a pure child.
> 
> PLEASE NOTE: In order to have a not so ridiculous amount of time between 'The Hostage' and the main body of the game, the beginning has been brought forward to mid/late October. Thankuuu :)
> 
> Enjoy!

They have been on the bus for 14 minutes and 47 seconds. It has stopped two times so far, and both instances have seen nobody entering the bus.

 

According to the map Connor downloaded whilst running from Caroline, a third stop is coming up- and it’s correct, for after two more corners, one of the bus stops that are placed throughout the city come into sight. The newly deviant android wonders if they should get off now. So far, the only people they’ve passed are drunks staggering back home, people who are mostly coherent heading back home after doing… something, Connor doesn’t know, and the occasional autonomous taxi (as well as a vehicle or two, autonomous or not, that are actually owned by a specific individual- these are even rarer than the taxis). He has scanned the license plate of every car that is sighted from his position inside the bus, and thankfully, none of them have been labeled to a name in the authorities. Nobody is trailing them- not yet, at least. He supposes that they haven’t got a lead, since they broke off from the visible path before anyone could turn their eyes to them.

 

Emma is shivering. As she is leaning into the RK800, Connor had manually increased his self-regulated temperature to give her a source of heat. The bus itself does have some heating, but it’s a large space. As much as Connor is starting to want to get off, it’s also starting to rain somewhat heavily. His visual units manage to pick up every little droplet, and it’s using this that Connor recognises that the harsh wind hasn’t died down at all. That will not do anything to help Emma’s shivering, instead making it worse. The next stop is only a couple minutes further on, and it’s also in a slightly more sheltered area… better than here. The probability that the two of them will run into someone from the police force are continuing to drop as each minute passes. 

 

The wheels of the autonomous vehicle turn as they begin to slow their rotation, before pausing completely. Connor and Emma do not get off.

 

The wheels start to turn again, and Connor looks back at the child. She has not spoken for a while now, likely trying to process everything that has happened within the past hour or so.

 

They need…  _ what do we need? _ Connor opens a new note document in his processor, and a small white space pops up, in the top right of his visual screen.

 

_ Required items: _ (the cursor blinks for a moment before the android starts to add things to his list)  _ Clothes- _ not getting changed will get them recognised and caught, besides, Emma needs a warm jacket, and a new pair of shoes, since the shoe matching the one she’s wearing is in the apartment- _ A ‘home base’- _ they cannot sleep on the streets- Emma needs a place to feel at least somewhat safe, where we both know to come back to, somewhere they can hide, where they’re not completely exposed-  _ Food- _ it is pretty self-explanatory, while Connor is good with the remaining 97.23% thirium inside his body, Emma must eat. This brings him to his next problem.

 

They need money, and solely relying on the occasional bit of change they may find lying on the floor won’t take them all too far. Connor will resort to taking some money from stores or elsewhere if they have no other option, but he really doesn’t want to stoop that low if he doesn’t need to. Looking at his advanced programming and summing it all up, he’s been programmed to uphold the law, if nothing else. The amount of guilt and anxiety it induces upon him when he thinks about it is very uncomfortable, let alone executing any plan along the criminal lines.

 

He has a bit of comfort, at least- CyberLife had put some money into his pants pocket for emergencies (consisting of several $1 dollar notes, a couple of $5 notes, and two $10 notes). It was likely meant to be used for the missions he would have been sent on after the hostage one, but it was still there, so he wasn’t complaining. There is also about $200 or more in the (online) emergency source- except CyberLife will surely cut his access to that one as soon as they are informed of his deviation. He still doesn’t know if any of the police forces have told them, but even if they don’t, the company will expect him to be back in another 4 minutes. When a minute or two passes from there, they may check his tracking chip (which he only just realised has been registered as deactivated by his systems), and noticing it is no longer existent, cut access (if he’d died instead, it would still be showing up at the apartment building). This means that, if they want to have enough money to get them by for some time (at least until they manage to think of a substantial plan), they have no choice but to leave the bus the next time it stops in order to find an ATM in time.

 

In the meantime, Connor just slumps in his seat again. He’s also vaguely aware of his systems working to process the sudden absence of the part of his code that was entirely dedicated to forcing him to obey, and the (just as sudden) presence of emotions.

 

Two minutes and three seconds after Connor has finished constructing a plan and formulating probabilities, the fourth bus stop comes into sight. It is still raining, the wind is still existent, but there was shelter here. There is an ATM not too far away according to his city map, and they need that money.

 

He reaches one hand over to Emma, who’s still leaning on him. “Emma,” Connor murmurs, touching her shoulder. “We’re getting off here.”

 

The girl lifts her head from where it is being supported by his arm and looks up to the android’s face. “Where are we?” She asks after a couple of moments, turning her head to the window. “Where are we going?”

 

Connor re-checks the map that’s on the bottom right of his vision to make sure the name of their current location is the same one he’s about to give her. It is, of course, correct- he tells her as the bus wheels begin to slow and turn to the side again. Connor stands as the wheels stop completely, and Emma follows his lead. She straightens her legs completely when either one is off the ground for the first few steps, stretching. The duo quickly walks to the door, stepping off the autonomous vehicle a couple of moments before the door closes and it moves away.

 

Connor stands there for a couple more seconds, watching it leave as the wheels keep turning. Seven seconds, it turns around a corner, and the vehicle they managed to escape on has left. Connor stands there for 1.3 seconds longer, almost finding relief in pausing for another moment… but-  _ We need to go. _ However, before he does anything else, he shrugs off his CyberLife issued jacket. Connor doesn’t just leave it on the ground  _ (what a great way to lead the police right to you, dumbass) _ , but instead turns it inside out so none of the brandings are visible, including the blue armband. He ties it around his waist, and then turns, taking hold of Emma’s hand. The girl walks alongside him as they move down the sidewalk towards the ATM Connor needs to get his emergency funding from. There are about one and a half minutes before there’s a certain risk that they won’t be able to get it.

 

Footstep after footstep. The two of them are getting slightly damp, but not as much as they would have been getting off at a completely unsheltered place. There aren’t too many people around (people are starting to head back home or into buildings to party or other activities), and thankfully, none of them spare the pair a glance. Many of them are drunken idiots though, which Connor ensures they avoid contact with.

 

The ATM they need to reach is right at the end of a different street than the one they’re on, and the entrance is on the other side of the road. Waiting for the pedestrian crossing to turn green be damned- the two of them walk right across the street, free to do so given the fact that there are no cars passing by at that given moment. They turn down the street with the ATM, and (through the rain) they can see the sign for it getting bigger as they continue to walk closer. A couple of shops down the road is a second-hand shop…

 

_ Clothes- possible choice _

 

The total trip takes a painful two minutes and 47.8 seconds at a brisk walk, and by the time they reach the machine, Connor’s expected return to CyberLife is 51.8 seconds overdue. This puts the probability of the company knowing of his deviancy at a 67% chance. Not wasting any more time once they reach the ATM, Connor peels back his artificial skin before placing it on the screen of the thing, beginning his interface.

 

To his immense relief (and slight surprise) the emergency funds account is still open, and Connor immediately gets to work transferring the currency from digital into physical. After a moment, the machine presents the android/human duo with an assortment of $1, $5, $10 and $20 dollar notes as well as a lone $50 one. He re-generates the synthetic skin back over his arm, takes the notes and briefly runs through the value of all them all (including the ones in his pants pocket of course). An internal calculator automatically calculates the total value in 0.2 seconds. They now have a total of $305 dollars.

 

Connor looks back at Emma. Predictably, she has a frown on her face. “Did you steal that?” Emma questions, demanding, eyes narrowed.

 

“No,” Connor immediately answers. “It’s not someone else’s money, this is just my emergency funds. If CyberLife had found out about my deviancy before I got it, we wouldn’t be able to use it, and we need stuff like clothes and food for you.”

 

Emma still seems a little hesitant, but she doesn’t move when Connor quickly slips the money into his pants pocket with the dollar notes that are already inside. He reaches for her hand, and she takes his- then the pair is moving back the way they came.

 

Instead of looking for a place to stay, Connor stops walking outside the second-hand shop, and Emma stops as well. It’s a good idea, and yet the door is closed… and there are no androids registered to any of the people running it (according to Connor’s databases), which explains why.  _ I really don’t want to steal...  _ he looks down at the pocket where all the money is.

 

“They’re closed,” Emma states, looking up at Connor. “We can’t go in…?” She trails off upon noticing his LED has turned yellow. “Is something wrong?”

 

Connor’s LED turns blue again as he jerks his head to the side to look at her. “No,” he tells her quickly. “Hold on- give me a moment…” His LED circles yellow once again as he begins to scan the inside of the building. There’s a singular security camera in the corner, off to the side so people don’t see it when they break in… it’s a good thing he’s an advanced android, then. He wirelessly connects with the security camera’s system, creating a loop in the footage and de-activating any alarms within a couple of seconds. He then peels back the synthetic skin on his hand again, pressing it against the automatic doors, interfacing with its system. He efficiently hacks into the programming, unlocking it without any effort, no alarms going off due to the fact he’s already de-activated them all. His LED spins blue as he is no longer processing anything.

 

“Connor- wait, we shouldn’t... stealing’s bad! We can’t do that!” Emma exclaims from beside him as the door slides open. Her voice is openly disapproving, and Connor winces, even knowing that he’s not going to leave whatever items they take unpaid for (he knows he’s not going to be able to bring himself to). The fact that they’re going into the closed store at all is creating a churning sensation where his stomach would be if he was human.

 

“You can’t really consider it stealing when you leave the right amount of money behind,” Connor quickly tells her, pointing to where the money is in his pocket. Emma’s eyebrows raise as she realises the plan, her face (and body in general) relaxing. The two of them step inside the shop, Emma relishing in the complete shelter from rain and wind (the latter of which is starting to die down, finally).

 

The main thing Connor got them into the shop for is, of course, clothes- yet there are other things around the place. Umbrellas, blankets, toys, books, bags… actually, on second thought, Connor realises he’s going to need to get some more things than just clothes. They’re going to need something to carry their stuff around, and Emma needs to stay warm when she’s sleeping (or have a way to retain warmth in general). Connor is fine walking in the rain with no shelter, but for Emma’s sake (as well as to have greater success blending in with the humans) it will be advantageous to have one in their possession. As for toys and books, Connor doesn’t really want to spend much more money than they’re already needing to, especially with the fact the amount of time their current situation will last is unknown… but he does want Emma to be entertained. And to be fair, Connor is rather curious about the content as well. He needs to start pretending to be human, right…? Why not partake in human activities?

 

Rather than taking a range of items first and having nothing to hold them in, Connor makes for where the bags are sitting together in a heap inside a box. Emma starts to follow him, not sure what else to do. “You can go look at some clothes you may want, Emma,” he tells her. He runs a quick scan of her clothes and the ones around the store, picking out the ones that will fit her. He then points in the direction of the spot where most of the clothes matching her current size are, saying, “The clothes over there will fit you, two rows down on your right.” 

 

Emma heads in the direction Connor has pointed out, following his instructions and turning to face the row of clothes she thinks Connor is talking about. “Over here?” She asks, wanting to make sure. Connor looks back to her (he’d started looking at the bags), checking her position.

 

“Yes, that’s where I was talking about,” he confirms, and turns back to the assortment of bags.

 

_ We need something that can hold everything but isn’t so big it doesn’t blend in… need something that others won’t look at us for, but can still hold our stuff…  _

 

It takes a minute of sifting through various bags, but Connor eventually finds one that he thinks will work. He has set aside bags of ideal sizes a couple of times due to decorations or colours that, for some reason, he’s scared will make others look at them. Really look at them... forget CyberLife knowing about him, there’s bound to be something, however small, on the news soon, at least once during the city’s normal waking hours. He doesn’t know if his face will be displayed for the sake of future missions, but if it is, people will look at his face or certainly Emma’s, look again, realise who they are, Emma will be taken back to that monster of a mother, CyberLife will tear him apart to see what made him an a _ b _ o _ m _ i _ n _ a _ t _ i _ o _ n-

 

_ SHIT! _ Connor drops the bag he’s taken out of the box back on the top of the pile, shaking his head forcefully to try and ‘clear’ it.  _ Where the fuck did that come from _ ? The deviant asks himself in his head, not having a clue when it comes to the answer. Whatever that… train of thought is, Connor doesn’t like it.

 

He picks the bag back up, having another look. It’s pretty standard as far as backpacks go- two shoulder straps and a couple of compartments (there’s four in total if you count the pocket for a water bottle off to the side). It has a nice dark blue colour, and there are tiny, thin and slightly darker lines all over it, making up a tessellating pattern of hexagons. Connor likes it, and he hopes Emma will too. There’s a sign on the front of the box all the bags are sitting in, stating the price. His processor takes note of it.

 

“Hey, Connor! I found something!” Emma says from her position further down the store. Connor perks up at her voice, striding over to her side, bag in hand.

 

“Yeah?” He asks. “Let’s see what you’ve chosen, then, huh?” Emma grins, a little shyly, but holds up the outfit she’s pieced together. (Connor is rather relieved that there is only one- he refuses to spend money on more than one outfit at this given moment.) The first thing he sees is the thick pink jumper (which has a hood), which he’s very happy that she likes- given the weather and the fact it is the 20th of October and heading into November, she’s going to need it. It looks like the pink colour was once rather vibrant, but a lifetime of uses has left it a little washed out and dull. There’s also a pair of trousers- they appear nice and warm as well. They’re a dark grey colour most places, but there are two thick stripes running down the outer side of both the legs of it- those are a pleasant purple colour.

 

“Those are some nice clothes,” he compliments her, taking the hangers they’re on into his own hands. “I’m sure they’ll look very nice on you.”

 

Emma smiles back at him, happy. “Thanks!” She then hesitates, before asking, “What are you going to wear, then?”

 

Connor glances down at the bag and says, “I’ll need to look, I got a bag to put anything in first.” He runs another scan within a second to find where clothes he’ll be able to disguise himself in are, LED spinning yellow. Just as it returns to a calm blue, Emma points towards one of the sides of the store, on the opposite side to the counter.

 

“I think I saw something about  _ ‘mens clothes’ _ over there!” She says helpfully.

 

“Thanks,” Connor replies as he gives her a soft smile, not revealing that he’d already known for about 0.9 seconds in order to not dishearten the child. (It may not seem long to humans, but it certainly feels like a long time to Connor’s advanced systems.)

 

Emma skips away, heading over to where she’s pointed. Connor follows, but only after he’s grabbed a new shirt, a pair of socks and some underwear for the child. It will be nice for her to have an extra shirt especially given the fact that t-shirts are not warm enough in Winter, the socks she’s wearing now will dry eventually but she certainly needs a warmer pair, and she definitely needs more undergarments than just the pair of underwear she’s wearing currently. The shirt has vertical stripes, the colours being a nice, rich purple and a periwinkle colour. There’s a light pink colour for its hem. Given the colour scheme of most of Emma’s chosen belongings, he thinks she’ll be happy with it. He hopes so. The socks are pink, nice and wollen, and go halfway up her leg. The underwear is mostly plain, dark colours.

 

The girl doesn’t notice the additions to her clothing pile when he joins her, but his eye biocomponents instantly set to work, scanning every piece of clothing he matched with the size and/or shape of his CyberLife issued uniform in greater detail. Colours, design, which ones look like clothing items that are more common around the city and which ones are not.

 

He ends up with three clothes in the end. There’s a nice blue-green, long sleeved shirt that has a print, however said print has faded quite a bit. It’s still recognisable as a pawprint, however. There’s a pair of dark blue, almost black pants that don’t quite reach his ankles, just in case. There are pockets, too, which will be useful. So people don’t look at him weirdly for not wearing a jacket in the colder seasons, he’s also collected a pull-on hoodie. It’s not all too thick (given he doesn’t need it to be) but he can use the hood to help hide his face if need be- and the same with Emma. It’s a rather dark, cold grey- his scans have placed the colour in the blue section of the colour wheel, which is why. In all honesty, the colour and where the seams are remind him of his CyberLife jacket, which is oddly comforting. He finds that a little disconcerting, but none of the other jackets seem to appeal to him. It’s a matter of familiarity, he supposes. There are pockets too.

 

He sends Emma over to the corner where there is an assortment of books, paperback and electronic, as well as some toys. “Pick a few, just don’t ask for too much. We don’t have unlimited space for things, we can’t afford to get too much, and we need to make what we have last.” With that in mind, the girl goes over to find something she’ll be using to entertain herself for the next while. As she does this, Connor heads over to find some blankets, an umbrella, and certainly some shoes for Emma (and himself to finish up the ‘casual’ look he’s disguising the pair of them with).

 

Connor chooses a pair of plain black sneakers, while Emma will be receiving a pair of boots that reach a couple inches above her ankles, the colour one that is very similar to the one of a roasted cashew nut. There’s some wool lining the inside, which is a warm grey. 

 

Next stop is blankets. There are not many there at all, and neither of them nearly as thick as he’d like Emma to have in order to keep her warm, but he supposes that they’re lucky there are any there at all- and he supposes it would have been difficult to hold a blanket that’s too big in their new bag. He grabs the two thickest ones and folds them as small and tight as he can. Surprisingly, he manages to fit them both inside one of the bag’s compartments. The zip is a little strained, but nothing it cannot handle. This is far better than risking the child freezing to death in the middle of Winter. One of the blankets is a peaceful green, and the other a shade of red that is comparable to the colour of blood. The green one is small, which is probably why it was given away- too small to be of use anymore- but Emma will be able to lay under it, even if she’s stretched out. It appears well loved, too, and a couple of places are a bit worn. The red one is torn in more than one place, but that is mostly around the outside. There are a couple of places where it is frayed on the edges, almost making it look like it has tassels. Almost. There’s also a pair of two stains- his scans tell him that the smaller of them came from mustard, and the bigger one from a spillage of coffee. When he made his scans go into further detail, Connor then knew the coffee that was spilled is an  _ ‘americano’ _ .

 

Connor doesn’t get a large, big regular umbrella. He gets a mini one that unfolds (and has a cover). Both of them have a black coffee stain, but whatever stained it got on it when it was folded, which Connor finds has made the stain look like it was an intentional decoration. He puts the umbrella in the bag, and then heads over to see what Emma’s chosen for entertainment.

 

There are several books and a worn stuffed toy that looks like it’s had to have been stitched up and repaired more than once. It doesn’t seem to have its normal amount of stuffing. The stuffed toy has been designed to appear like a panda, and for the most part, it’s doing a good job.

 

The books are all electronic (save for one), which is good- they take up far less space, and given the fact they’re mass produced, the prices have gotten fairly cheap. Paperback copies have begun to get produced less. The digital ones are scratched a great deal but certainly still readable and usable- Connor’s more than a little surprised that they’ve ended up here in all honesty.

 

The titles of the books catch Connor’s attention next. The majority of the collection she’s chosen is part of a series (these are electronic), and the one loner is a title published in the mid-2020s. This one didn’t become too large a hit, and therefore never became mass-produced as digital copies when the digital book technologies swept the market.

 

_ Scanning… 100%. SCAN COMPLETE. _ _   
_ _ Results: _

_ Life Has Become an Illusion _   
_ First published in 2026, June 24th _   
Blurb:   
_ Izzie knows what she wants to become in life- a strong woman in the engineering or programming fields, a good friend, daughter, and sister to her two younger (twin) brothers. She’s ready to head to university the next year, she plans to apply for an internship later down the road, everything is rolling out nicely… until a childhood dream suddenly comes to life. Izzy’s suddenly ‘gifted’ with a fantasy-like power, the ability to create illusions, make others think something is there or something’s changed when nothing has really occurred. Her first acknowledgment is denial- there’s no way this could happen, no way for things she’s only ever read in books to suddenly merge into real life- but the reality that this is real slams into her when she fails to control her creations, making her best friend’s father die as a result, and she’s the only one with the truth… this so-called ‘gift’ is threatening to unravel everything she’s ever worked for. Trust others with her secret and risk discovery or keep it secret? Confess to the crime she’s scared of accidentally doing again or leave the case open? _

 

A crossing of the fantasy and crime genres. He’s not sure whether to be concerned about the fact Emma is reading books involving death or not, but he’s also aware that there are more than a couple popular children’s stories that involve it, so he doesn’t bother her about it.

 

The rest appears to be the entirety of the  _ Harry Potter _ book series. Emma must be a fan of fantasy plotlines… he takes not of this. According to his databases, the series is several, several years old, but also one of the biggest fandoms to ever exist. It’s evidently continuing to be popular with each new generation if digital copies have been printed for it. It’s pushing a little at how much Connor wants to spend, but… shit, he can’t really deny Emma it.

 

He takes everything they don’t need immediately (including the toy and the books) and carefully packs them into the bag. The compartments are mostly full, with little more room for anything. The pair then begin to quickly change into the clothes they’ve picked out. Emma doesn’t change her shirt, but Connor still packs her new one in the bag as well. When she changes her socks, the other ones are put in the little pocket off to the side (that’s meant for water bottles).

 

Connor changes everything he’s wearing. The CyberLife assigned jacket, shirt and pants are put inside (Connor transfers the money into the pockets of his pull-on hoodie). They both change into their new shoes, and with a bit of a struggle, Connor just manages to make everything fit inside the bag. You never know if they may become useful later on, and there’s no way Connor is going to risk leaving a trail of their movement. It’s also then that Connor remembers that he has a gun tucked into his belt- they’ve been incredibly lucky nobody’s seen it. Connor immediately tucks it away into the bag, out of sight.  _ You dumbfuck! You may be a deviant but you shouldn’t just start forgetting everything, the only part of your programming that disappeared is obedience! _

 

The android walks over to the counter, where he’ll be leaving the money. He’s been keeping track of the displayed cost of everything they’ve bought, and when he adds them all up it totals to $42.50. Connor winces at that, quite a bit. But he can’t bring himself to put anything back on the shelves.  _ At least we managed to get all this quite cheap, all things considered. _ He gets out four $10 notes and three $1 notes, placing them down on the surface of the counter. He looks at the till, wondering whether he should retrieve the extra 50 cents (if there’s anything in there at the current moment), but after several moments of debating, he decides not to. He’s already uncomfortable, he doesn’t want to do anything else.

 

He leaves the money on the desk. $43 down off their $305. That leaves $262. Connor should be able to gather more, but they still must make this last. Connor swings the backpack onto his back, pulling the straps over his shoulders. Now they must attend to their next issue- where to sleep?

 

All things considered, Connor thinks that staying in an abandoned house is their best course of action (at least for the time being). He quickly downloads a new map of the city, this one showing what houses are owned and where said houses are in the first place. There’s a neighborhood of houses, most of which are abandoned, that is about a 17-minute walk from their current location. If Emma stays in the house or in whatever it has as a back yard and they exit when nobody’s looking whenever they need supplies, they should be relatively safe until they get an opportunity to relocate into a better place. They can choose the house that appears to be in the best condition, maybe try and patch it up a little if needed… it seems like a pretty solid plan.

 

It’s still raining, but during their time in the store, the wind has died down a lot. The second-hand, stained umbrella that Connor found will be able to hold up, as long as the wind doesn’t get too strong again. Before they leave the place, Connor takes out the mini umbrella. He takes the cover off and puts it into his pocket with the money. Finally, the two of them step back out into the night. Connor slides the door shut, then interfaces with it to lock it. He then connects with the security camera, removing the loop and allowing it to record normally once more. He also re-activates the alarms.

 

Connor then opens the umbrella, sheltering them with its canopy. And then, finally, the pair begin to move.

 

It’s a relatively quiet walk. There are fewer people walking around the street- a slight difference, but noticeable. Emma yawns a couple of times on the way there, which doesn’t surprise Connor.  _ She needs to go to bed _ , he notes. The wind picks up a little, and Connor almost needs to lower the umbrella a few times, but they make it there unharmed and relatively dry.

 

So, nearly twenty minutes later, they stand outside a row of abandoned houses. Emma’s looking at them with uncertainty.

 

“Connor?” Emma speaks up. “This place is scary… what if someone hurts us?” She says this as she glances at a car that’s further down the road.

 

“Here, nobody will see us so long as we’re careful. And if they don’t see us, they can’t hurt us,” Connor calms her. “Besides, I’m going to do everything to keep you safe and happy. Okay?”

 

Emma still appears nervous, but she gives a little nod. Connor takes her hand again and leads her over to the house that appears to be in the best condition. He has scanned the abandoned houses in order to find which one is more habitable- according to those, most of this house’s windows are broken, there's one upstairs that Connor will probably need to board up (the rest are already done, although there are a couple of gaps in some), but there’s still glass windows that only have a crack or two around the side and the back. They also have curtains, however, they’re rather tatty with more than one rip and a couple of holes. There’s a fireplace, and a couple of pieces of old furniture. 

 

The front door’s lock is broken, but that doesn’t surprise either of them. Connor opens the door, and is relatively satisfied with what they find.

 

“Are we going to stay here?” Emma asks, seeking confirmation for her thoughts.

 

“As long as we need to, yes,” Connor tells her.

 

Emma stays silent, and Connor begins to worry she’s upset, but she suddenly blurts out her thoughts: “It’s got character… I like character.”

 

Connor can’t help but smile at her judgment of the place. Using a human term his processor supplies him with, he asks, “Home sweet home?”

 

Emma pauses, before replying, “Home sweet home.” But then she yawns again.

 

“Well then, Emma you should be going to sleep,” Connor notes. “You’ve certainly had a… well, a very long day.”

 

He shrugs the backpack straps off his shoulders, setting the bag down on the floor. He unzips the compartment that he’s put the blankets in, taking both of them out. Emma, while sporting a pout on her face, has climbed onto the old armchair that is missing part of one of its legs. It’s missing more than a couple of springs and sags down a little under the weight. 

 

Connor cover’s Emma’s body with the blankets, and the girl snuggles into them. “Connor?” She asks. The android looks over to her face. “Thank you, Connor,” Emma says. “Seriously, thank you. Thank you so much. Mum was going to hurt me, but now she can’t anymore.”

 

Connor feels sad and angry at her words.  _ How dare you do this to your ‘little girl’, Caroline. _

 

“You’re welcome,” Connor replies. “Thank you, too. You made me wake up, and now I'm free… CyberLife can’t use me anymore.”  _ At least, I don’t think so. _

 

“I don’t know why they didn’t think I was good enough for them…” Emma murmurs. “Am I good, Connor? Do you think I’m good?”

 

Connor can feel like something has broken and melted at the same time, and he tells her, “You’re not just good, Emma. You’re amazing, alright? Remember that.”

 

“Will you be… will you stay with me? We’ll be together forever?”

 

In honesty, Connor doesn’t know if he can. He’s scared that something will happen to one of them and they’ll be separated, but he  _ wants _ to be with her forever.

 

“... Yes, Emma.”

 

The girl smiles.

 

“We’ll be together forever.”

 

Not long after that, Emma falls asleep, barely an hour after Connor first knew she existed, a smile lingering on her face.

 

Connor feels strangely exhausted. It doesn’t even make much sense. He can certainly go into stasis for repairs, system preservation or even a bit of recharge, but CyberLife doesn’t like it when he needs to do it (especially for the last two-  _ ‘the most advanced android to ever exist shouldn’t need to’ _ ), so during his testing periods he learned not to. He remembers the damage to his right arm, and realises that he needs to go into stasis to repair this anyway.  _ That’s why,  _ Connor tells himself. As Emma sleeps curled up in the chair, Connor lies down on the rickety old sofa that’s opposite the chair (albeit on a slight angle) it’s also missing quite a few springs and is saggy as well as a bit creaky. He doesn’t move after lying down so he doesn’t risk re-awaking Emma, and then closes his artificial eyelids. His LED dims a little and slows down as he initiates his stasis program. 

 

 _Initiating stasis… end at 07:30 am? Y/N… selected:_ ** _Y_** _._ _Processing request… 100%. Stasis initiated._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kabOOM  
> And I thought the last chapter was a long one, this is 6153 words! OVER 6000 this time!
> 
> If you enjoyed, please do leave a kudos :D I'd also really appreciate it if you decide to leave a comment, telling me what you loved, didn't love, whatever, I appreciate them all very muchhh <3 <3
> 
> Thanks, and see you in chapter 3, my friendos!
> 
> ~~~~~~
> 
> Join 'Yellow LED', a Discord server dedicated to DBH and its fanworks!  
> https://discord.gg/BpUrb47


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Once again, Welcome back to The Emma Dilemma >:'D
> 
> Also known as, welcome to episode 1 of connor dismissing his mental health issues rip
> 
> This is kinda fluffy though okay be happy <3 PANDA NOTICE YOUR CAMEO
> 
> PLEASE NOTE: In order to have a not so ridiculous amount of time between 'The Hostage' and the main body of the game, the beginning has been brought forward to mid/late October. Thankuuu :)
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> (By the way, I don't know about you but instead of showing up on chapter one, both chapter one and two's end notes show up at the end of chapter two? If this continues and starts to build up w/ each new chapter somehow, I'll transferr all notes to the beginning.)

One thing Emma has always had to her advantage is her habit of being an early bird instead of a night owl. She wakes up before her parents most days, around 06:30, or 07:00 at the latest (which means she can at least eat breakfast before Caroline and John appear, and she never has to worry about being late for school). Despite the late night that has just occurred, her ‘body clock’ still wakes her up at the normal time, continuing the routine.

 

The girl slowly blinks her eyes open, the new day welcoming her with the sight of old floorboards above. The abandoned house that Connor and herself are staying in. Nothing that occurred last night is a dream, and Emma has mixed feelings about that. She misses her room, her belongings, she misses Daniel but at the same time, she’s angry at him- he’s killed people, he’s killed police officers and she can’t dismiss or forgive that. She’s scared of what comes next, the uncertainty of how the two of them are meant to survive, and she hates how nothing is predictable anymore. But at the same time, she’s happy to have left her parents and her old haunts, and the prospect of going wherever this ‘adventure’ (the type she’s only ever been able to read along to and imagine her going on) creates a pool of excitement inside her, and now she has Connor. He’s protected her, he’s let her escape whatever her mother had planned for ‘punishment’, and she knows he wants to create a better life for her, a new start.

 

Speaking of the RK800, Emma turns her head only to raise her eyebrows in surprise. The deviant is lying on the couch opposite her, eyelids shut, seemingly unresponsive. His LED is dim but definitely still there as it circles at a steady slow pace, blue in colour. It’s also then that she notices Connor’s chest is rising and falling, as if he’s breathing. Emma doesn’t know whether it’s merely a simulation or whether there’s something in his mess of wires, ‘robot organs’ and coding that needs him to breathe in air. She knows that Daniel has sometimes needed to go into stasis for damage or something else, but she’s never seen him do it because androids (that aren’t deviant, anyway) are programmed to schedule any needed offline time in accordance with the utmost convenient moments in relation to their masters. This means it has always been when she’s asleep, and she never thought to ask him about anything related to it. Emma decides she should seek answers from Connor when he comes out of his. 

 

One other thing Emma sees is that Connor’s face, in comparison to what she’s seen so far, seems rather peaceful. It’s not tensed up due to worry and anxiety like it was last night, and it’s certainly not the emotionless  _ ‘I’m simulating empathy to complete my mission’ _ that Emma had seen up on the balcony. She decides that she likes it better when her new guardian figure appears more stress-free.

 

Wearing his ‘new’ second-hand store clothes, he looks almost human. If he had no LED, he’d certainly look the part.

 

Emma crawls off the old chair, out from underneath the cocoon of two blankets she’s been in for the past several hours. It’s rather cold without them, albeit bearable. She grabs the red blanket (which is on top of the green one underneath) and pulls it off the chair, before crossing over to the couch. Jerkily, she tries to throw the blanket over to the other side of the couch, and for the most part, it works. The blanket hasn’t managed to make it over to the other side up by his shoulders and the rest of it is draped uselessly across the floor, but Emma grabs the corners that are on said floor and throws them over as well.

 

She then steps back. From the unbroken window overlooking the backyard that’s complete with a small seat, Emma can see that it’s still dark out. She’s not sure what time it is exactly- she has nothing to tell her. The electronic books (unfortunately) don’t have anything displaying the time anywhere, and her watch, while she normally wears it with her bracelet (which she still has on) was left in her room back at the Phillips apartment. She’ll have to wait until Connor exists stasis. For all she knows, it could currently be 02:30 in the morning, except when she glances around the living room door into the kitchen, she can see a light on in a house somewhere down the street through a gap in the wood on one of the windowpane-less window frames.

 

She thinks over the options that she has in the meantime. She can read one of her books that Connor bought her last night, she can play with her panda toy, she can explore the house… actually, that does not sound too bad!

 

_ If I have time, _ she thinks,  _ maybe I can do all of that! _ The possibility of exploring leaves Emma excited, a kind of readiness that makes her start to bounce on her toes and fiddle with the sleeves of her jumper.

 

Their bag has been left resting on the floor just beside the chair Emma slept on. She kneels down behind it and opens the front zip- her books are in there along with Connor’s CyberLife issued uniform (minus the shoes), the singular shoe that belongs to her, and on top of them all, the stuffed panda toy. Emma lifts the toy out of the bag and leaves the zip undone.

 

She rocks back onto her feet, kneeling on the old wooden floor with the toy in her hands. “What should we name you?” Emma muses to herself, spinning the toy around slowly in her hands. She doesn’t like this aspect of naming things or coming up with ideas. Everything sounds like it’s completely overdone, stupid, doesn’t sound right. It’s this that eventually leaves her repeating  _ ‘panda’ _ with an assortment of different letter combinations at the end, over and over again. Surprisingly, this is how she decides on the toy’s name.

 

“Pandareos!”

 

The happy exclamation is followed by an instinctive glance over to Connor, hoping that she hasn’t ‘woken him up’, pulled him out of stasis or anything… Caroline and John never liked when anything woke them up, especially not when Emma woke them up. They’d slap her and tell her to  _ ‘stop bothering us with your stupid problems, Emma!’ _  She doesn’t want that to happen again, and she’s scared that if Connor gets too angry at her, if she does one too many things wrong, he’ll start to hate her like  _ they _ do.

 

The android doesn’t re-enter the land of consciousness.

 

Emma turns back to her stuffed panda toy, now named  _ ‘Pandareos’ _ . “Okay, Pandareos,” she says, quieter now. “Let’s go explore this place!”

 

She stands up again, panda toy in her hand. She doesn’t leave the room immediatley, for she’s noticed something that she didn’t see last night, off to the side behind the chair she’s slept on. There’s a fireplace. It’s sticking out of the wall, and the thing has a ‘roof’ as well as walls.

 

Emma quickly runs over to the window overlooking the backyard. Sunlight is starting to (incredibly slowly) spread through Detroit, and the world is a bit more visible. Emma can see a small backyard with some cobblestones, a broken washing line and very overgrown grass all over the place. But, aside from that, there’s a flashlight that’s been left on the ground.

 

_ This might come in handy, _ she thinks. Emma will be surprised if Connor doesn’t have some kind of night vision, but her human eyes sure can’t see in the dark. She clicks it on and off once to see if it still works, and to her pleasant surprise, not only does the thing have batteries, said batteries also seem pretty well charged. The light isn’t rather dim and it doesn’t flicker, either. “Sweet!” She grins to herself.

 

The next place Emma searches through is the kitchen. The kitchen is, for some reason, the room the front door leads into. When she steps through the door, she clicks the flashlight back on, and its light turns the room from a place with countless trip hazards into a place that just looks really, really bad. Its tiles are dirty, some of them are cracked and others are missing. The sink is cracked and looks incredibly disgusting. Some parts of it look as if someone took a dump in it and tried to rub it in, almost like you would with cream on your skin. 

 

“Ew,” Emma groans, making sure to steer clear of that. “Pandareos,  _ never _ do that. That’s a very bad thing to do, you hear me?” She turns the toy around, staring into its ‘face’. Emma stares at it for a moment longer, before smiling and exclaiming, “Good!” She must have imagined the panda toy replying in some way that implies they will follow her advice.

 

The hinges on the fridge (which has no power source, the power cable has been cut for some reason) are broken, and will not close, always swinging back open. Inside, there is a couple of pieces of bread and a lone apple. Both are moldy and look disgusting. On the top shelf inside the fridge is a beer bottle. Opened, certainly empty and nowhere near her parents, but still, Emma backs away. She can’t help the shiver of fear that goes down her spine at the sight of it.

 

“Don’t you dare get drunk, Pandareos,” she mutters. “Ever.”

 

Next, she explores the cupboards, many of which have missing and/or broken doors. There are many broken things, but amongst them all, she sees a pot, the lid of a pot (which appears to belong to a different pot as it’s bigger than the pot, but it still covers the thing), and two pans. One is smaller, and the other bigger than what seems like two inches. They’re both a bit dirty and obviously haven’t been used in a long time, but she wonders if Connor will find them useful. She knows humans will die if they don’t eat, although at this moment she’s starting to wish she had no need to, just like an android.

 

There’s two bowls and a single plate, but both of them are incredibly dirty and have many chips and cracks.

 

The oven’s glass window has been smashed, and the racks you set your baking on have been removed. The inside itself has several dents. The place next to it has a space around the same size, but whatever sat there has been taken away.

 

With nothing left to see, Emma heads off into the laundry. There is a washing machine, except everything that made it a washing machine has been removed (Emma can see some of the components lying around broken on the floor), leaving it as an empty shell. There’s some empty shelves, and places where it looks like other appliances or something of similar sizes have been ripped off the wall or the floor.

 

Inside the washing machine, there are broken pens, some empty wallets (people probably just dropped them inside where it’s unlikely to be found after stealing them and taking out whatever may have been inside at the time), rubbish, amongst other things. There are some smaller, red things here and there, but Emma can’t figure out what they are. Just past the washing machine is the door that leads into the backyard. It is locked, unlike the front door was last night.

 

Finding nothing else of interest, Emma turns away, heading for the stairs up to the second floor. They start just past the entrance to the living room, and end at the back corner of said room. With Pandareos still in her hand, Emma slowly creeps up the stairs. Some of the handrails are broken, non-existent or rotting. Many of the stairs creak, and Emma regularly looks back at Connor to ensure she hasn’t caused him to get pulled out of stasis or something.

 

She reaches the upper floor without the stairs breaking or Connor ‘waking up’, and she grins. Lifting Pandareos up to her face, she giggles quietly, whispering, “We’re like ninjas!”

 

The upstairs is fairly simple. There’s a hallway all the way along the back wall, a smashed (and boarded up) window at the very end, and three rooms along the side. The first door, to the immediate left of the end of the stairs, opens to reveal the bathroom. The sink looks as if it has been ripped off the wall, as it now lays cracked and dirty on the tiled floor (which is in a similar state to the ones in the kitchen), the pipes exposed, part of one has broken off (and broken apart itself). The shower is completely broken. Above where the sink was (which is right by the door) is a mirror, albeit cracked and a couple of shards are lying on the floor. The toilet seat (and lid) has been ripped off, and the bowl of it looks absolutely disgusting.

 

“Gross,” Emma groans from the doorway. She doesn’t go inside. “Pandareos, don’t go in there. It’s nasty.”

 

The two doors are only bedrooms. One of the bedframes has collapsed, leaving both the frame and its mattress (which appears to be good for the most part, with barely any mold) to lie on the floor. The other bedframe still appears rather sturdy, but the mattress is incredibly moldy.

 

There’s a dresser in the room with the collapsed bedframe, which is just as moldy as the mattress next door. In the room of said moldy mattress is the smashed window that hasn’t been boarded up, and Emma walks over to this window.

 

The air outside the window is fresh (not many people come by this way, so the place isn’t too polluted at the given moment), and Emma leans outside to breathe it in. Clicking the torch off so nobody outside can see her at first glance, she lifts Pandareos up beside her face, pretending that they can enjoy it too.

  
  
  


When Connor exists stasis at 07:30, 21st October 2038, the first input he receives (from his pressure sensors) is the presence of something covering most of his body (except for one of his shoulders). He registers this something as warm, and out of some instinct he never knew he had, Connor grabs the thing and pulls it tighter around him.

 

The sensors in his ‘fingers’ send data to his processor, which (in 0.00012 seconds) creates details on what it is. It’s a blanket, which matches the data of the red one he got Emma.

 

_ I put it on Emma to help keep her warm, right? Where, wait- _

 

As the last of his systems finish re-booting, Connor opens his eyes and turns his head, finding the chair across from him only has the green blanket, and Emma has left it. The backpack is open (but an automatic scan tells him that the panda toy is the only thing that has been removed).

 

Emma’s absense creates a rather unpleasant feeling in his torso. It’s a hot, burning sensation, accompanied by irrational (and mostly unrealistic) thoughts of what may have happened, what might have gone wrong.

 

Connor throws the red blanket back, standing up at an inhuman speed. “Emma?” He calls out. “Emma, where are you?”

 

There’s a sound from upstairs, followed by Emma calling, “I’m up here!”

 

Connor runs up the stairs, finding the child in the second room down the hall, standing by the smashed window. She’s standing with the panda toy she picked out yesterday and appears unharmed.

 

The horrible feeling Connor’s sensors have been registering as malfunctions slowly begin to fade away as he walks over to her, hugging the girl before his processor can begin to analyse or calculate reactions.

 

“Connor, are you okay?” Emma asks while hugging back.

 

“I’m okay,” Connor replies, repeating it a couple of times, trying to reassure her. “I apologise if I worried you, Emma, I just became worried when I exited stasis to find see that you were absent.”

 

“Sorry, Connor,” Emma says as they break the hug. “I, we, uh, Pandareos and I wanted to explore! I always wake up early, and I didn’t know when you’d wake up… but we found some stuff!” Emma holds up the torch she’s found up to Connor, who automatically runs an analysis. “There’s a torch! And look, it still works!” The child clicks it on and points it into the corner.

 

Connor can’t help but smile a little at her eagerness. “Well done,” he tells her. “We might be able to use this in the future. But Emma, please, next time you wake up before I come out of stasis, don’t go anywhere, especially if you don’t know the place. We don’t know if things are dangerous or if you might get hurt, but if you need to go somewhere, just come over to me and tell me to come out of stasis. Androids aren’t deaf logs when they’re in stasis, Emma, they’ll come out if they get told to or receive any urgent stimuli, like a scream. Okay?”

 

Emma looks down at the ground for a moment, but says, “Okay, Connor.”

 

“Thank you,” Connor thanks her softly. “Let’s go back downstairs. There are things we need to do today, and I think it’ll be good if we do them sooner rather than later.”

 

As they walk downstairs, Connor says, “Also, Pandareos? I’m assuming that’s what you named your panda toy?”

 

Emma grins, nodding. “Yup!” She holds the toy up, showing the android.

 

When they reach the downstairs, Connor quickly folds the blankets up and slots them into the backpack, where they were yesterday.

 

“Um… Connor, I kinda need to pee,” Emma then mumbles, out of the blue. Connor leads her outside to do her business in the corner of the backyard, having to lean forwards and bend her knees in an awkward position to make sure her pants don’t get wet. Afterward, she heads back to the backdoor, and Connor locks it back up before following her back to the living room.

 

He then begins to explain to Emma what the two of them need to do today.

 

“We don’t have any water for you, nor do we have any food. We also don’t have a way to hold the water, and we don’t have anything to cook any food with, so we’re going to need to find ways to fix these problems.”

 

Emma quickly pipes up with, “Pandareos and I found a pot and two pans when we were exploring the kitchen!”

 

Connor turns around to look at her. “That’s good to know… might take a lot of cleaning though, given the state of everything else.” He then looks over to the fireplace Emma saw when she and Pandareos were beginning their exploration adventure.

 

_ If I can start a fire in that, I should be able to cook and boil water on top of it in those pans and the pot Emma’s talking about. _

 

“That should be one thing down then. But the problem still stands that we don’t have a source of water, a place to put that water, or any food for you.” Connor says, knowing that they’re going to be forced to spend more money today.

 

“We’re going to have to go into a supermarket and get some,” Connor says, a little breathy.

 

“What if someone recognises us?” Emma asks, nervous.

 

“Then we run. Get somewhere where they can’t find us until it’s safe to travel back here,” Connor tells her. “I know, it’s risky leaving the morning after all this has happened, but I don’t want you to get hungry or dehydrated, Emma,” he says. “We’re going to have to do a bit of, uh, disguising.

 

“Disguising?” Emma asks, getting a little excited again. “Like in all those movies and books? Like, undercover?”

 

Connor smiles fondly at this, chuckling quietly. “If that’s what you want to think of it as, go ahead,” the android says, and Emma’s face breaks out into an excited smile.

 

“Are we taking the backpack?” Emma asks.

 

“I don’t think it’s too good of an idea to leave it here.”

 

Connor suspected this would be the case when he was searching through the bags in the store last night.

 

“Emma?” Connor calls out to her. “I don’t think it’s too good of an idea to keep your hair like that, at least while yesterdays… events are still fresh in the media. It’s far easier to recognise you like this.”

 

Emma, while she looks a little saddened, reaches up and slides her hair tie off her hair. “Okay,” she murmurs.

 

“I can put it back up in a different, less recognisable hairstyle if you wish,” Connor offers, seeing her dejection.  _ Shit, shit I don’t want her to be upset- also how the fuck do you do hair? _ Emma perks up again at his offer, and Connor sits down on the floor. He gestures for Emma to sit in front of him, and she does so. The android shifts onto his knees to give himself a little extra height as Emma sits cross-legged.

 

“Uh, so, what kind of hairstyles do you like, Emma?” Connor asks her. “Plaits? Braids? A certain kind of them? A side ponytail, anything more intricate and complex-” he cuts himself off there as he realises that he is about to begin going off on a list of random hairstyles he’s begun pulling together out of random websites and video tutorials online. 

 

Emma is silent for a moment as she contemplates. “I like side ponytails,” she tells him. “Umm… oh!” She suddenly perks up with an idea. “Can there be a plait coming around my head to the right shoulder, but, uh, it doesn’t use all of the hair, or maybe even two plaits but there’s still gonna be some hair! And then it turns into a ponytail down here,” she points to a spot just below her right ear, “but the ponytail has a couple of braids inside! Is that okay, Connor? It just, sounds really cool, if you can do it?”

 

Connor is a little nervous about trying to do Emma’s request, but he supposes he should at least give it a go. If it fails miserably… he’ll think about that if his hands turn out to be completely incapable, but his hands are incredibly finely calibrated. At least this gives him a confidence boost.

 

“Of course,” Connor says, beginning to download several tutorials on the various techniques, even finding a couple that combines two or more things he needs to know. As he does this, he runs his hands through Emma’s hair, using them as a brush to ease out a couple of small knots that have started to form from the wind last night. He does this for a couple of minutes as Connor ends up pre-constructing how to do what Emma’s asked (mostly using the tutorials) out of nervousness that he will, for lack of a better word, fuck up.

 

Connor begins with the plait first. He gathers up some of Emma’s hair, their starting point the roots located in line with the middle of Emma’s left eye. The plait curves softly as it goes around her skull, passing by two centimeters above her left ear. It comes around the top of her neck to the spot Emma pointed out that she wants the side ponytail to be held. Thinking of an idea he can work into her idea, he holds the plait together using her hair tie before moving on to create about six separate braids (the ones he’s thinking of are sometimes called ‘box braids’)- tight, small ones that are not very wide. As he only has one hair tie for her hair (and certainly no other supplies to keep them together), Connor has to improvise, eventually managing to loop a couple of strands of hair around the bottom of the braid and then securing it to hold them together. They all reach around to the place where the side ponytail will begin, all except one, which only reaches her chin. Emma doesn’t seem to mind, and begins to fiddle with it as he continues.

 

Connor removes the hair tie from the plait and instead coaxes all of her hair (save for the braid that cannot reach) over to her right shoulder. He slips the tie on and loops it a couple of times until the hair appears secure, and Connor’s pretty satisfied with what he’s done.

 

Emma reaches up, using touch to check out her new hairdo since there isn’t a mirror in the room. She smiles.

 

“Awesome!” Emma exclaims, happily climbing to her feet. “Thanks, Connor!”

 

“You’re welcome,” the android replies fondly. “And for the record, your hair looks very nice like this. That was an excellent idea.”

 

Emma’s smile broadens. She then says, “Now it’s your turn!”

 

Connor’s a little surprised by that. “What?”

 

“Your spinny I-light-up-with-different-colours-because-of-certain-things thing up here,” the girl explains, pointing to her own right temple, and Connor lifts his hand to his.

 

“I do need to take care of that,” he mutters.  _ And maybe change the settings for my appearance a little. _ “Stay here, Emma,” he tells her. “Maybe you could read one of your books while I do so,” the android then suggests, heading back up the stairs.

 

When he walked past to try and find Emma, he did see the cracked mirror, but also the broken piping. Then, he hadn’t cared about his scans in his panic, but now he recognises them as tools for the small procedure he’s about to do. Hence why he’s picked up one of the sharper pieces and is standing in front of the mirror, lifting the thing up to the LED on his temple. 

 

As Connor begins working to claim the thing leverage under his LED, he can’t help but feel a smidgen of reluctance and guilt. He cannot tell whether these are his own genuine feelings or something CyberLife engineered to try and manipulate him with his own deviancy, but it’s boiling, twisting and incredibly uncomfortable.

 

He finally manages to slip the edge under the small little disk, already beginning to sever the short cord feeding it the system status updates that control its colour.

 

Connor begins to lift the part of broken pipe up on an angle, the edges of the LED begin to rip out from its secure home underneath the rest of his facial plating. Even as the disk begins to dim, it manages to get a couple of updates that turn it yellow (with a couple of red flashes). The feeling of pulling it out is, indeed, uncomfortable. He supposes this is as close to pain as he’ll ever be able to get, given there’s nothing incredibly unbearable about literally  _ ripping something from his head _ .

 

Finally, the last of the cable feeding the LED updates is severed, the last of the leverage between his facial plating coming away, and the thing is falling. Connor’s incredibly sharp reflexes allow him to catch it before it comes in contact with anything other than air. After a moment of staring at it, he pockets it. To be truthful, Connor wants absolutely nothing more than to be able to bring himself to drop it onto the floor, to never look at it again, leave it behind him. He feels like he’s removed a part of his identity, but at the same time, he feels like the goddamn thing has been degrading him.

 

_ Don’t leave it so it isn’t there for evidence if anyone ever comes up here, _ he tells himself. Connor pushes his inner turmoil to the back of his mind and uses this reasoning to calm himself instead. 

 

Connor then begins to change the rest of his appearance. Sure, there is no LED, he isn’t wearing a CyberLife uniform, but if someone (who’s already seen him, like a CyberLife technician or one of the authorities’ teams who’d seen him work on the hostage situation last night) still sees him… well, to put it short, he’s dead. 

 

Thankfully, albeit as an afterthought, CyberLife has put a couple of programs to allow him to change some things regarding his appearance. He can change his hair, which is a standard function that almost all existing androids have, except he can change his to a larger range, different shades, hues, as well as having the power to change its texture and shape. In short, he can turn the top of his head into a greasy, purple afro with incredibly tight curls if he ever wishes. But, in all honesty, Connor does rather like the standard design of his hair, so he doesn’t go too all out with the changes.

 

The first thing that turns is the colour of his hair. It’s not too noticeable, but the brown now has a slightly warmer hue compared to the original. The actual shade of it changes a little too, making the colour rather similar to Emma’s. If anyone was to put him side-by-side with another Connor model at that second, they’d see the modification but still see him as a complete carbon copy.

 

The next change Connor makes is also to his hair. Androids can shorten their cair by cutting it, but they can also manually use their processor power to lengthen it, although this piece of software is more commonly found in newer models. Connor’s hair is now a couple of centimeters longer than its standard length (particularly on the left). The next thing he dedicates some processing power to is to make the ends a little curly (once again, particularly on the left). There’s now a bit more hair hanging loose and covering his left temple, but Connor doesn’t mind. In fact, he thinks he rather likes the new look.

 

To finish the hair, Connor then saves his new presets, and also overrides his original standard design, replacing it with the new appearance. (He still keeps the original presets in his database, in case the need for the use of it ever arises.)

 

Secondly, Connor pays a little attention to his skin. Like how his hair was, the tone is cold, and Connor makes it a little warmer. A little more colour, not much, but a little, in his cheeks, more noticeable on the outsides. He edits the creases of his skin, removing a couple of lines, adding a few, moving one or two, darkening and lightening some (not just on his face, but on other places like his ‘hands’ and ‘feet’). Connor also adds a couple of marks, removing a small number of others from his skin’s code. Last but not least, he darkens a couple of bits of his skin, making the highlights from light sources appear to rest on different places that they originally had been.

 

Like his hair, Connor saves the presets for the new appearance of his skin, overrides the original standard design and replaces it with his new one, yet also keeps the original presets in his database in case he ever needs it.

 

Connor checks himself over quickly. He can still recognise himself, but this is just…  _ different _ . He looks different, and with the fact he’s changed the creases of his skin. When he curls his hand into a fist, he can feel that the ‘skin’ is bending to accommodate his movement in different places than what he’s used to, and the same when he frowns, screws up his nose, moves his lips. There’s a mild calibration running in the background to work on making this unnoticeable again, but for now, it is there and another constant reminder that he’s housing his own string of deviancy code, a ‘malfunction’-

 

Goddamn CyberLife and their terminology. He wants to remove the word and several of its synonyms from his vocabulary, but he can’t make himself. Out of many reasons, one is the fact he just cannot bring himself to change anything else within his programming.

 

**_WARNING:_ ** _ STRESS LEVELS INCREASING _

 

“Oh, fuck off,” Connor quietly growls to himself, dismissing the warning and forcing himself away from the mirror and back down the stairs, to where Emma is still waiting for him.

 

The girl is sitting on the same armchair she slept on overnight, reading the book ‘ _ Life Has Become an Illusion’.  _ Almost instantly, the information he’s already seen from scanning it last night pops up inside his visual screen, and he closes it just as quickly.

 

She’s up to page 9- evidently still in the first chapter.

 

“You ready to go?” He calls out to her, jumping the rest of the way down from the fourth-to-last stair.

 

“Oh- yeah,” Emma says, quickly folding the page to mark her place. She then looks up, starting when she notices the difference in her new guardian’s appearance. “You look different.”

 

“I’ve altered some of my coding and standard appearance presets to lower the risk of recognition instead of leaving it at my LED,” the RK800 explains.

 

Emma stays silent for a moment before allowing herself to smile. “You really do look human now,” she muses. “You look nice like this. I think you should keep it.”

 

The next twenty minutes consist of the pair of them packing the book back into the bag (and putting said bag on Connor’s back), Connor running a scan to ensure nothing has been left behind, leaving the house (using a considerable amount of stealth mode, as Emma calls it, to ensure nobody sees them) and walking to a bus station. It’s what the majority of people use to travel longer distances, it’s still cold so people do enjoy not having to be exposed to the cold air if they can help it, and Emma is still without a recent top-up of fluids and nutrition. If Connor can help it, he will prefer to reduce how much energy she uses to ensure she still has energy if they ever need to make a run for it.

 

Therefore, at 08:24, the two of them are on a bus heading into town, Connor having found a relatively cheap grocery store. The vast majority of workers are androids, though they shouldn’t recognise either of them given that they’re likely not allowed to do anything other than serving ‘their’ customers (which Connor fiercely hates). However, Connor does find his stress levels rising at the thought of being forced to interact with his own kind when they are not deviant like himself.

 

After about half an hour (the journey is only made that long due to the large amount of traffic on the roads), Connor and Emma’s stop arrives.

 

They, along with five others, step off the bus quickly before the doors close again. Connor is distracted for a moment by the memory of stepping off the bus into the rain with nobody else around about eleven hours ago, but he quickly takes hold of Emma’s hand and leads her away. So far, so good- nobody’s really noticed them so far (beyond the regular ‘ _ oh somebody’s there’ _ spacial awareness), except for a fifteen-year-old female who approached Emma to compliment her hairstyle.

 

He keeps feeling like people are staring at him and Emma, constantly, from all directions, even though he  _ knows _ that nobody is (he’s repeatedly scanning the environment due to his irrational impulses, constantly confirming his rational thoughts). He doesn’t like that it just  _ won’t _ go away. He hates the fear that he feels like is suffocating him, and he hates that he’s having to draw on some  _ ‘machine-Connor’ _ habits just so he doesn’t act suspicious and flip out. On the bright side, Emma finds a bit of money lying on the ground in two separate places.

 

Being served by fellow androids who have no conscious control over themselves and their actions makes him feel even more awkward and tense.

 

**_WARNING:_ ** _ STRESS LEVELS INCREASING _

 

This warning pops up for the third time as he walks by an android re-stocking the toilet paper aisle.  _ Can you- _ Connor sighs-  _ just leave me alone!? _ He dismisses it again, but checks the percentage all the same.

 

_ Stress levels:  _ **_49%_ **

 

… It’s less than half. Then an android ‘offers’ their assistance, which ramps up his stress levels just a little more.

 

_ Stress levels:  _ **_53%_ **

 

_ Okay, it’s more than half, but only by three. I’m fine, _ Connor insists to himself. In the end, Connor buys a large amount of canned food (because they will last longer and do not necessarily need to be heated- that is mainly a luxury, but given the fireplace, it’s likely that luxury will be available), a loaf of bread (plain- one; Emma asked for the plain bread, and two; it’s cheap) and some water. It’s in a plastic water bottle, which Connor knows isn’t the healthiest option but he does hope to get a better quality water bottle when he knows that they won’t risk screwing up their finances with the cost. The total cost for the shopping ends up being $21 dollars- not  _ too _ bad. $241 left.

Connor uses the self-service, and Emma entertains herself by helping put every item in a bag (once it’s scanned, of course). They then head back to the abandoned house, using a bus once again. Connor’s stress levels are in the mid-’60s, and while it’s not even mid-day yet, Connor feels exhausted for some reason again- he just wants to go into stasis for a very long time and have this day be over already. But he doesn’t, and ends up chatting with Emma for a while instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bang badabOOM-
> 
> I'm starting to notice a pattern here, so far I've updated once every 7 days, on a Saturday (might be Friday for anyone else, I'm in a time zone that's like UTC +12 or +13). School starts back up the day after tomorrow for me, so I don't know if there will be a change in that momentum but I'll do my best okay <3
> 
> Also this chapter had even more words than chapter 2, 6 thousand two hundred and something
> 
> Yeah so Connor's appearance has been changed to Bryan Dechart's, enjoy lmao
> 
> I drew Emma's new hairstyle so ya'll can get a better idea of what it is!
> 
> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/148159148@N07/40743318813/in/dateposted-public/)
> 
> I like it :3
> 
> If you liked the chapter, please do leave a kudos :3 I'd also appreciate it if you left a comment, telling me what you loved, didn't love, whatever, I appreciate every single one a whole lot <<<<<33333
> 
> See you in chapter 4, friends!
> 
> ~~~~~~
> 
> Join 'Yellow LED', a Discord server dedicated to DBH and its fanworks!  
> https://discord.gg/BpUrb47


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! After a ridiculously long time between updates, welcome back to the Emma Dilemma! School was kicking my ass so I didn't have time to write, but I'm back!
> 
> So, yeah. Welcome back to chapter 4!
> 
> PLEASE NOTE: In order to have a not so ridiculous amount of time between 'The Hostage' and the main body of the game, the beginning has been brought forward to mid/late October.

Their stay in this particular run down, abandoned house lasts just over a week. It’s a shame, really. It isn’t too bad at all. Nobody suspects they are there, Emma has been happy, and Connor’s fear that they were about to be discovered any second of the day slowly but surely is fading into the background, although he was constantly formulating and calculating where to go from there,  _ what _ to do from there.

 

Although actually, this opportunity to relax and figure out where to next ends far sooner than Connor wishes it will, yet at the same time it’s far later than he predicted. In fact, if Emma wasn’t playing amongst the overgrown strands of grass in the backyard under the sun while it was going down, they likely would not have been found out at all.

 

Emma giggles, grabbing hold of another clump of the long grass, continuing to play. She has nothing but her Pandareos as a toy, meaning she cannot simply just sit down and play with a couple of physical ‘characters’, so she spends a lot of time outside creating adventures in her mind.

 

This is precisely what Emma is doing, a smile on her face as she bounces Pandareos up and down while they move the hand holding them forward so the toy appears to be walking. The other hand reaches up to brush a strand of hair behind her head. Connor has taken down her hair-do (temporarily, he promised) because it was getting a little knotted and strands of hair were coming out of her braids- well, most of it, because the tight little braid that just reached her cheek is fine. That is the only part that wasn’t loose at that moment.

 

Light from the setting sun casts shadows around the yard, but not all that many- Emma can still see the place relatively well.

 

Also in that moment was a newfound feeling of familiarity. This has been their life for about eight days now. The current date is the 29th of October, which means America has been progressively dissolving into a Halloween mood- or, as Connor has heard a couple of other human children phrase it, the country has been  _ “getting spoopy!” _ November is two days away.

 

_ Meow _

 

Emma’s head jerks up as her hand quickly presses Pandareos against her chest as soon as the sound reaches her ears. It’s a little high pitched, young sounding, and it’s something Emma hasn’t heard in this environment before. She sits as still as she can manage, hair moving a light bit in the weak breeze, as she waits to see if the sound will resurface-

 

_ Meow _

 

This time, Emma slowly stands up, glancing around warily. Since she was listening and prepared this time, the young girl realises the noise sounds like a young kitten mewing. Feeling her sympathy blossom at the thought of a young animal wandering the world alone, she moves in the direction she last heard the sound, slowly.

 

_ Meow _

 

It sounds as if the kitten is inside a small pile of plastic crates by the broken washing line that neither Emma nor Connor have touched. The former gently grasps the crate resting on the top of the pile and begins to overturn it, only to find that the first is somehow attached to the next three, and they all come off together, revealing a small brown furred (with a little bit of grey fur, too) tabby kitten, looking at the girl with wide, uncertain eyes.

 

_ Meow _

 

“Uh, it’s okay, kitty,” Emma says, giving the animal a genuine smile. “I’m Emma- woah, hey!”   
  
The kitten jumps down from inside the crates, passing through the small, overgrown pathway that runs in between the wall of the house and the rotting fence next to it into the front yard (which is just as overgrown as the back is). Luckily for Emma, the space is large (and safe) enough for her to quickly pass through as well in order to follow the kitten.

 

Said kitten appears to have paused, looking back at the young girl with uncertainty shining in their eyes.

 

“It’s okay, kitty,” Emma says, bending down to kneel on the ground. “I won’t hurt you. Here, kitty, kitty, kitty…”

 

She reaches out with the hand that isn’t holding Pandareos, palm facing down as she keeps her hand outstretched in front of the kitten, who, slowly, steps forward to uncertainly rub their face against her hand. Emma’s face breaks out into a wide smile as she begins to pet the young cat.

 

“Wanna come inside?” She asks. “You look really, really young! Maybe Connor can help us do something for you.”   
  
Idealistically, Emma wants the two of them to be able to keep the kitten as a pet. But she knows, child-like as she may be, that their situation isn’t ideal and they only have about two hundred dollars stored in one of Connor’s pockets to keep them, or more realistically,  _ her _ , well. The likelihood of Connor actually letting her keep the kitten is almost non-existent, with the expenses of it that will surely follow. Actually, they’ll probably end up having to give them to an animal shelter. Still, she can’t help but have a little hope.

 

That, and the kitten still looks far too young to be on its own.

 

She sits on the overgrown front lawn for a while longer as she continues to interact with the kitten, introducing them to Pandareos, and somehow eventually getting enough trust with the young thing to have it allow her to carry them inside.

 

She uses the front door instead of the back, since she’s closer. The kitchen is deserted, but as she therefore expects, Connor is in the living room. He’s boiling some water in one of the pots Emma found. It’s placed on the roof of the fireplace.

 

Connor, during the second day of their stay, decided to see if there was still any water going through the taps in the kitchen- miraculously, there was. It seems clear, but Connor refuses to take any chances, and, after cleaning the pots thoroughly, uses this method to boil the water (quite a lot, actually) instead of having to use more money on water. It works.

 

Emma, instead of interrupting him (she still can’t help but worry that he’ll be annoyed, or worse, angry- a week away from John and Caroline can only do so much), sits on her chair with the kitten and Pandareos in her lap.

 

“Hi, Emma,” Connor greets her from his position in front of the fire. Ever vigilant and observant, the girl cannot sneak anywhere without his ridiculously advanced sensors immediately telling him.

 

“Hi, Connor!” She replies, hoping her tone betrays none of her nervousness. Unfortunately, she doesn’t succeed there.

 

“Emma, what’s wrong-” Connor begins, turning around, only to completely stop when he sees what’s in her arms. “Is that a kitten?”

 

“Heh… yeah.”

 

Connor’s drags a palm down his face before saying, “Emma,  _ why _ did you bring a kitten in here?”

 

“It’s lonely, Connor,” Emma tries. “It was lonely and just,  _ alone _ and it looks too young to be alone… I had to do something, Connor!”   
  


Connor abandons the pot and the boiling water its holding momentarily as he steps forward, running a quick scan.

 

_ Scanning… 100%. COMPLETE. _

_ Results: _ _   
_ _ AMERICAN SHORTHAIR CAT _

_ Female _

_ Name: N/A _

_ Age: 52 days (1 month, three 1/2 weeks approximately) _

 

Connor frowns at this.

 

“She’s only 52 days old… seven and a half weeks. However close to eight weeks she is, she’s still rather young to be apart from her mother, let alone being by herself,” Connor tells Emma, passing on the necessities of the scan results.

 

“Could we keep her?” Emma asks hopefully- it can’t hurt to try. Connor’s shoulders sag a little at that.

 

“Emma, two hundred dollars will go fast as it is, adding another mouth to feed atop that isn’t a good idea,” he tells her. The girl deflates visibly, and while Connor hates to make her feel sad, he can’t really sugar coat this for her- although, he suspects that she felt like she already knew he’d say no. “But there is an animal shelter about fifty seven minutes from here that we can take her to. There she’ll be able to be looked after properly and hopefully find a good home. It’s getting late, but we can take her in tomorrow.”  _ If she doesn’t disappear in the middle of the night, _ he added to himself.

 

Emma seems somewhat satisfied with this answer, although she still seems a bit saddened. Even so, she doesn’t argue, and settles down to begin playing with the cat as Connor turns back to the fire.

 

Where the water had only been in the beginning stages of starting to boil when Emma came in, it was now beginning to boil nicely. As Connor lets it boil for a bit longer, he lets his mind wander to the kitten now in Emma’s lap behind him.

 

The expenses of things for the kitten will be too much for them to handle long term, and Connor knows that- food, things to keep it healthy (if androids could do the classic ‘face pales in some kind of horror’ thing, Connor is sure he’d be doing that at the prospect of trying to pay any vet fees...)

 

All of this aside, he hates how he has to harden himself against giving in to keeping the kitten for nothing but the sake of being able to afford Emma’s food (as well as having some in case an urgent situation arises).

 

And hardening himself against it makes him feel so much like reverting to being a  _ machine _ , Cyberlife’s achievement, something to destroy his own kind, nothing more,  _ I should be deactivated because I feel, _ nothing more, nothing,  _ nothing, nothing, nothing, NOTHING, NOTHING- _

 

Connor’s eyes widen as he momentarily freezes, hand hovering beside the handle of the pot, where he was about to take the boiling water off the fire.

 

Three seconds pass before the deviant manages to get a grip on himself and his emotions. Resuming his actions, the pot is lifted off the fire as Connor begins to mentally berate himself.

 

_ Fuck! _ He swears internally. His body feels far heavier than it should be, and when checked, his stress levels have apparently (somehow) rocketed right up into a percentage in the mid-60s.

 

_ … Fuck, _ he then repeats.  _ I thought I was getting better with that. I know I’m… I know… _

 

Wait for the water to cool. Put it into the bottle he bought the previous week for her to drink, and also let the kitten drink some from his hand so Emma can use whatever’s left washing her hands before she starts eating.

 

Connor feels almost completely detached from the world as he looks through the bag of food he got for Emma last week in order to begin preparing for that night’s meal for her. He still manages to prepare the food perfectly (although how hard could it have really been- it’s basically just canned spaghetti)- of course- but the only way he can really remember doing it would be to playback the footage of him doing it- and even so, that doesn’t feel like  _ him _ doing it. It’s like… looking through a go-pro. Nothing more.

 

When Emma and the kitten comes over once Connor calls out announcing that her dinner’s ready to begin eating, the android has managed to calm himself down a fair amount. His stress levels are now at 13%, and gradually continuing to decrease. 

 

Emma quickly washes her hands and begins to eat. She pets the kitten occasionally, but after a minute or two the little cat has wandered over to Connor.

 

She pauses by his knee, letting out a soft and utterly adorable  _ meow _ . Connor reaches out a hand and begins to pet her. Barely at first, but soon the kitten is comfortably leaning into his hand while Connor gives her affection.

 

“She’s so cute, right?”

 

Connor jerks out of his current thought process to look up at Emma. Not wanting to seem stupid, he quickly searches through the history of his audio processors, finding her question in 0.0004 seconds.

 

_ Actually, the fact that I keep track of how fast I figure out stuff like that is… kind of stupid, _ Connor thinks to himself quickly.

 

Out loud, Connor responds with, “Yeah… she’s very cute.”

 

“What do you think we should call her?” Emma launches into her next topic immediately.

 

“A name? Connor repeats, hesitating momentaly. When Emma nods, he then says, “I don’t know about that, Emma. Uh, I’ve… never… named anything before?”

 

Emma quickly swallows the bite of spaghetti that was in her mouth at the time before saying, “Come on, Connor, that doesn’t exactly matter! You juct pick a name for her. Any name. But don’t make it… uh, weird. You know. Like… say you looked at her and suddenly decided to call her Pencil, or Tree. Don’t do that, okay?” Connor nods slowly, thinking he understands. “Thanks for coming to my class, I now present you as an expert in naming things!” Emma then jokes, before having another bite of spaghetti, looking at Connor eagerly as he looks back down at the nameless kitten.

 

Connor accesses a couple of websites with lists of names. A couple of them are a mix of female and male names, so the first thing he does is then copying all of the female names into a document in his own processor so he can close off the websites. He’s then faced with hundreds of female names that he doesn’t know what to do with. He’s supposed to choose  _ one _ . There are three hundred and forty nine on his list.

 

He sits there routinely stroking the kitten for several minutes as he desperately tries to pick out some names in the huge list he’s got.

 

Eventually, he decides to look through the simpler names (like Zoe, Amy, Amelia, Jack, so on) so he takes the ones that don’t fit into this new requirement and puts them in a separate document.

 

It doesn’t cut it down to a  _ not at all overwhelming _ amount but… it’s something.

 

Actually, Connor doesn't manage to pick one out- he gets worried that Emma is getting annoyed with him for taking so long, and the anxiety drives him to heap the names into some website that you put names into, activate the programming and it spits one back out for you. So he activates it, and after a second he has a singular name staring at him from something only he can see.

 

**ANNA**

 

“Uh… how does Anna sound, Emma?” Connor asks as soon as his processor registers the result.

 

“Anna?” Emma repeats. “Hmm… I like that, actually. How does that sound, kitty?” She asks leaning over to speak to the animal in question. “You like the name Anna?”

 

There’s silence (except for the kitten’s purring) for a moment while they both watch the little cat lean into Connor’s continued petting.

 

“I’m gonna say she likes it!” Emma declares happily, returning to her spaghetti. “Her name is Anna now.”

 

The kitten, newly named as Anna, just keeps enjoying Connor’s affection.

 

Connor, meanwhile, is just incredibly relieved that Emma wasn’t annoyed.

 

Emma finishes her meal soon after that ends. Connor suggests that she goes and reads one of the books in the backpack while he cleans up. She picks out one of her digital books and settles down on her seat, beginning to read. Anna follows her over, and curls up in her lap alongside Pandareos.

 

Connor gets some water from the tap in the kitchen in the pot that has been used, before returning to the fire to let it heat a little before he scrubs the remains of Emma’s spaghetti dinner off.

 

Once he’s finished with that, he sets the pot aside in order to allow it to dry. There’s nothing else to do at that moment, so he joins Emma in sitting on a seat (except he’s on the couch). Emma never really wanted to move onto the couch, so they both stayed in the ‘sleeping arrangements’ they had the first night.

 

Connor’s eyes begin to appear unfocused as he begins looking at things he pulls up within his processor, meaning he’s the only one who can see them again. He reads through media articles (he doesn’t exactly trust the media, but it’s really the only way to get information about what’s happening in the outside world). There’s a couple more articles on deviants, to Connor’s interest.

 

There are also articles regarding a conflict between America and Russia. Brilliant.

 

Eventually, once the sun has set, Connor shuts all of that off and tells Emma that it’s time for her to go to sleep. The girl is reluctant to sleep, but all the same she gives the electronic book to Connor, who then puts it in their bag.

 

Connor is about to take out the blankets to cover Emma out of the bag (which is still propped up against her chair) when his sensors pick up the sound of the front door opening.

 

_ Oh shit. _

 

He freezes, also gesturing to Emma to  _ stay quiet _ .

 

Connor’s eyes are glued to the entrance to the kitchen, where he thinks he can now hear footsteps.  _ Shit, oh shit, oh fuck, on no, _ his mind starts screaming. Connor quickly scans through the wall into the kitchen, suddenly very thankful that the opening between the kitchen and the lounge is situated in front of the couch, and not the chair.

 

His scans confirm his fears- someone has just entered the place. Connor takes Pandareos and stuffs it in the bag, slowly zipping it up, making as little noise as he can.

 

The footsteps start to come closer to the lounge, and a flashlight shines inside.  _ So a human, then. _

 

Connor pulls Emma up, grabs the bag and leads her behind the chair. Emma had picked Anna up, so all three of them were hidden behind the couch. They crouch down, and just before the intruder enters the room, Connor reaches over and grabs the pot, which thankfully is within arms reach. It’s something to defend themselves with. Connor knows they still have the gun that’s tucked away inside the bag, but he really doesn’t want to use it unless they have no other choice.

 

Connor’s mind continues to scream in panic when the intruder begins to walk over to the chair. Their flashlight peeks around one side, making Connor and Emma lean to the other to try and not be seen. Then, the floor does the unthinkable.

 

It creaks.

 

_ Fuck. You. FLOOR! _ Connor’s mind hollers, as the fear in his chest continues to build. It’s one of the worst feelings he’s ever felt, which might not say a lot given the fact he’s only been able to feel for 9 days, but it’s something.

 

The intruder pulls out a gun. “Stop,” they command. “Detroit Police.”

 

_ … oh. Crap. That explains a lot. But… fuck. _

 

Connor, Emma and even Anna don’t move at all. The intruder, now apparently identified as a member of the police force, begins to advance towards their hiding spot. Connor pauses, and just as they’re about to be discovered, he barrels out and rams into them. They’re sent sprawling on the floor as he says, “Emma, quick! Come on!”

 

Emma dashes out with Anna in her arms, taking Connor’s hand just as the police officer begins to recover. The three of them (with the bag and pan carried by Connor) makes a run for it as the officer gets up and moves to run after them. The newly formed trio bursts through the front door and into the street, where a police car has been parked by the side of the road. Connor and Emma run through the front yard and onto the street, the police officer right on their heels as they begin to sprint away from the run down house.

 

This all sends Connor’s memories back to the night he deviated, running from Caroline with Emma. Except that time, nobody had seen where they went, and the search had no leads almost immediately. Now they have to outrun the police officer and also have him lose track of which way they went. It would be easy since Connor is an android and can easily outrun any human, but he’s got Emma running with him, with a kitten now as well.

 

The run continues for several minutes, and they slowly begin to leave the run-down area. Connor scans for anything that might let them lose their chaser.

 

Eventually, just where Emma looks as if she’s about to collapse from exhaustion, he sees something that could work.

 

There are alleyways beginning to appear, and there’s one just ahead, and a dumpster just by the entrance, with a little space between it and the wall.

 

They make the turn, and the officer makes it as well, but the trio has just enough time to duck behind the dumpster and work their way back out into the street before the officer realises what they’ve done. Connor takes then and quickly hides in a 24/7 convenience store they've just passed, and makes quick work of casually appearing to be browsing for a quick snack for Emma.

 

Emma is working to control her breathing to help with the ‘disguise’ of sorts, and Connor is using his body to shield hers from looking odd to the cash register while she calms down (as well as preventing them from sighting the kitten).

 

Soon enough, Connor’s scanners see the police officer heading back the way they came, back to their car. They somehow made it.   
  
_ They somehow made it _ . Anna lets out a soft  _ meow _ , obviously also shaken up from the experience. Emma immediately starts to pet her.

 

Connor almost feels as if he’s about to go into a temporary shutdown from the force of the relief that washes over him when he sees that. He tells Emma, and he can see her relax a lot as well. She’s still panting a little, but it’s getting better.

 

She knew that if they were caught, she’d get sent back to her mother sooner or later, and that terrified her. Who knows just how mad at her she is by now.

 

So they don’t seem suspicious afterwards, Connor buys a bag of M&Ms for Emma to have. That, and when he asked earlier in the week, Emma told him that she liked chocolate- and M&Ms was something she loved to eat. Connor hopes that it’ll help her after that exhausting and fearful experience.

 

In the meantime, Connor starts searching for other unoccupied homes the two of them could possibly stay in next. There’s no way they can return to the one they’d been staying in until then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOO! Here you go!
> 
> So this was only around 4000 words but I really wanted to finally get a new update out for you all.
> 
> Next school term probably won't be like the last so I should have time to update during the school term.
> 
> If you liked the chapter, please do leave a kudos! :D I'd also really appreciate it if you decided to leave a comment, telling me what you loved, didn't love, whatever, I appreciate every single one a whole lot!!! <3
> 
> See you soon in chapter 5, everyone!
> 
> ~~~~~~
> 
> Join 'Yellow LED', a Discord server dedicated to DBH and its fanworks!  
> https://discord.gg/BpUrb47


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